Amy Mohsin (Director) is a life long learner who is currently teaching at Mulberry School in Los Gatos, California. She received her bachelor’s degree in Special Education at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale in 1993. Upon graduating, she moved to California and immediately starting teaching in San Jose public schools. Amy left teaching to raise her young children and discovered an entirely different school environment; one where all activities were geared towards what is developmentally appropriate for children. Sold on the power of progressive education, Amy joined a cohort of parents to start the Indigo Program, a progressive, public program in the Oak Grove School District. Amy was also a founder and board member for Communitas Charter High School. Amy has facilitated parent education classes for several years in her role at Indigo and continues to learn from others while sharing her knowledge and experience as a Positive Discipline trainer and educator. She lives in San Jose with her 3 children and 2 dogs.
Bill Overton (Director) has worked with kids since he was 17 years old. He taught in multiage classrooms for 30 years at Ohlone Elementary School in Palo Alto before moving to the front office and taking on the principal role. Bill has always been an advocate for strong social-emotional programs in schools. He has also been a strong proponent of thematic, project-based curriculum—years before it became a buzzword. Bill's repertoire of “Adventures” have become so successful that schools, families, and private schools still request them. Now doing consultant work as the owner of Whole Child Educational Services, he is also pursuing his EdD. in Leadership for Change at Fielding Graduate University. Recently he became the Clinical Educator for the Jewish Hebrew Union College and continues to provide professional development for schools. Bill sits on the boards of several education-related organizations.
Linda Inlay (Director) began her career as an educator in Hawaii, where she collaborated with the founders of the Ho`āla Educational Philosophy, a combination of Adlerian principles and Carl Roger’s self-actualization theory. Ho`āla in Hawaiian means, “awakening of the self,” emphasizing the core values of responsibility, respect, resourcefulness, and responsiveness. Later Linda served for eighteen years as principal of River School in Napa County, CA. During her tenure, River School received two California Distinguished School Awards, the Promising Practices Award and National School of Character Award, and the California School Board Association’s Golden Bell Award. In 2012 River School also became a New Tech Network School where project-based learning is infused with technology as an engaging and effective methodology for teaching and learning. Linda has presented at numerous state and national conferences and has published four articles in Educational Leadership. Linda holds a Masters in Educational Foundations from the University of Hawaii. Her thesis, Ho`āla School The Transformation of Character Through the Implicit Curriculum, continues to be used a training guide for teachers at two schools.
Michael Reid (Director) finds a lot of academic conventions odd, including the one that governs that an autobiographical blurb such as this one should take the form of a third-person biography. He studies the way that persons and characters are patterned in the fiction and philosophy of 18th Century Britain. A professor of literature at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, Reid has spent virtually his entire adult life educating and being educated. He attests to the lack of wisdom in higher education, and proudly serves on a board whose mission Socrates would have understood.
Seán Rose (Director) is an experienced and award-winning educator, facilitator, and trainer. He has worked on a number of cross-cultural and interfaith education programs in North America and Europe. He consults for national and international organizations, including a pioneering interfaith school trust in the UK, and a dialogue program active in over 30 countries. He is an Interfaith Youth Core Speaker, a Fellow of the RSA, and a Soliya dialogue facilitator. Seán is passionate about education for social change, building cultural and religious literacy and social justice. Originally from the UK, he now lives in California.
Theodore Timpson (Founder and President) serves as Head of School at Tru in Palo Alto, CA, a startup project of Young Spirit Foundation. Theodore has taught for twenty years at all elementary levels, and extensively tutored high school students in math and test preparation. He specializes in original approaches to teaching that create a natural connection between student and subject, having developed a unique concept-based math program, original social studies projects, and an inquiry-based science program. Theodore holds a B.A. in English from Harvard University and a M.S. in Education from Bank Street College in New York City, an institution nationally recognized for its developmental approach to children. He also has a M.S. in Educational Leadership from San Jose State University. Theodore's motivation to create schools comes from a philosophy of building identity through reflective engagement, drawing upon his own experiences with meditation and yoga. He lives in Mountain View, California with with wife (and close collaborator) and two children.