A school is only as strong as the people who are a part of it! ARISE is fortunate to have some truly remarkable individuals on board.
Founding Leaders of ARISE High School:
Romeo Garcia, ARISE's Co-Principal, earned a Bachelors degree in Theater Arts and Rhetoric from Occidental College in Los Angeles, CA. At Mills College since 1983, he has earned a California Teaching Credential, Administrative Credential, a Masters in Education and is currently pursuing an Ed.D in Educational Leadership. In his current position, Mr. Garcia is director of the Upward Bound and Educational Talent Search Programs (TRiO) serving 800 youth in the Oakland community. He served as the Assistant to the President, Janet Holmgren, for four years. As Liaison to the President’s Office, Garcia is a member on the Intersegmental Coordinating Committee of the California Education Round Table. Garcia grew up in Oakland, attended Oakland public schools and worked for six years as a teacher at Brookfield Elementary School in the Oakland Unified School District. Garcia is also a graduate of the Upward Bound Program.
Garcia served several terms on the Board of Directors of the Western Association of Educational Opportunity Personnel (WESTOP), the Julia Morgan School for Girls and the English Center for International Women.
Laura Flaxman, ARISE High School’s Co-Principal, brings seventeen years of experience in urban education to her current role. Prior to joining ARISE, Ms. Flaxman served as Co-Director of the Small Schools Project for the Coalition of Essential Schools where she launched a national project to identify 20 exemplary small high schools across the nation, help them develop the skills to “mentor” others just creating schools, create 10 new schools and convert five large schools into small schools. Flaxman came to Oakland in 2000 to start Life Academy, a new small autonomous public high school, where she served as principal. Prior to a year at Harvard and an internship at the Boston Arts Academy, Flaxman worked for Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound in New York City helping to create and support several new middle schools and a couple of existing high schools. She taught English, art and social studies at Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn, a residential treatment center in Manhattan, and South Bronx High School where she coordinated a program with the New York City Outward Bound Center. Flaxman holds two Master’s degrees: one in Educational Leadership from Harvard University and the other in English from the Bread Loaf School of English. She earned her Bachelor’s at Wesleyan University and her high school diploma at the Bronx High School of Science.
Flaxman founded and serves on the board of the Oakland Small Autonomous Schools Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting and strengthening small public schools in Oakland.
Emma Paulino, who continues to play a leadership role in ARISE High School as a parent organizer, has been a full-time organizer for two and a half years with Oakland Community Organizations (OCO), a faith-based organizing group representing 40,000 Oakland families. Prior to her organizing work at OCO, she was a leader with St. Elizabeth/OCO for six years. Emma provided organizing support for a small schools policy in Oakland and collaborated on the design and organization of ASCEND, a K-8 school in East Oakland, which was one of the first small, autonomous schools developed in Oakland Unified School District. Emma was born in Michoacan, Mexico, and has been in the U.S. since 1985. She is married and has three children in the Oakland Public Schools: Fhatima and MacEdward attend Oakland Technical High School, while Edgardo, Jr., an eighth grade student at ASCEND, hopes to be a founding student at ARISE High School.
The following ARISE Design Team members have also been instrumental in creating our school:
Kristen Chase
Jean Johnson
Brittney Johnson
Mary Franklin
Tonnesha Pace
Landesha Pace
Edgardo Paulino
Guadalupe Barrera
Eileen Barrera
Leslie Barrera
Leah Herrera
Sharonda Green
Josue Hernandez
Julia Hollinger
