Board

GO Public Schools is governed by a board of Oakland educators and community members with a shared mission of ensuring all Oakland students have access to a quality education.

Allison Akhnoukh, President
Allison is an Oakland resident and proud parent of two preschool boys.  She has been working in education for over 10 years now, most recently with the Knowledge is Power Program Foundation where she supported the growth and sustainability of regions in California, Colorado and Texas. Prior to this work, Allison served as Director of School Portfolio Management for Oakland Unified School District. A key component of this role involved working closely with school communities to ensure that any changes within the portfolio of Oakland public schools were informed by and responsive to the needs of the community. Before working at OUSD, Allison served as Director of Development for Epiphany Middle School in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Allison received a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Dartmouth College and a master's degree in business administration from Harvard Business School.

Hae-Sin Thomas, Treasurer
Hae-Sin is a founder of Great Oakland Public Schools and the CEO of Education for Change, a charter management organization based in Oakland, California whose mission is to provide excellent educational opportunities throughout the "flatlands" of Oakland.  She was the co-founder and CEO of urbanED solutions, a non-profit education consulting organization committed to improving academic outcomes for children in historically underserved urban centers across the country. Previously, Hae-Sin worked for the Oakland Unified School District for 15 years - as a teacher, principal, school developer, and executive officer, including as founding principal of ASCEND. Her last three years, she led a team charged with designing and leading two key foundational tenets of OUSD's nationally recognized reform effort Expect Success, where she was responsible for facilitating the design and opening of 22 new schools, replacing 18 chronically-failing schools. Hae-Sin holds a B.A in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, a Masters in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of San Francisco, and a Masters in Administration, Planning, and Social Policy from Harvard University.

Mirella Rangel, Secretary
Mirella Rangel grew up in the Bay Area and León Guanajuato, México. As an undergraduate she earned a bachelors degree in Environmental Science at the University of California at Berkeley. At Berkeley she became a leader in the student movement to demand affirmative action and established a student of color coalition that sparked a resurgence of the Third World Strike.  Immediately after graduating from Berkeley, she became a math and science teacher at Oakland's first Charter school, Oakland Charter Academy, quickly emerging to become the school's Principal and Academic Leader. As a leader at Oakland Charter Academy, she launched a teacher's leadership team and Parent Committee that dramatically increased the school's failing Academic Performance Index from a 1 to a 5 in less than three years. As a teacher, her students' mathematics scores drastically outperformed the average in Oakland.  She left Oakland Charter Academy to care for her newborn son, Lucio Mateo. Two years later she welcomed her daughter, Sabina Luna, into the world, and co-founded a Spanish language parent run cooperative preschool, Las Semillitas. Mirella began working at Oakland Leaf in 2005 and became Executive Director in 2007.  While at Oakland Leaf she has helped develop the infrastructure for the organization and programs to thrive and continue their work in cultivating community transformation through creative education for youth and families.

Dr. Washington Burns
Dr. Washington Burns has spent the last 17 years working to better the lives of residents in the West Oakland neighborhood he once called his own. Now the Executive Director of the Prescott-Joseph Center for Community Enhancement, which offers free health, education, art and social services, Burns first settled at 27th and Adeline streets after moving from northern Mississippi when he was a teenager. He earned a degree in public health from UC Berkeley and a medical degree from the University of Buffalo. In 2000, he retired from his post as lab director in the department of pathology at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, where he had worked for 34 years. He has won nearly countless awards for public service and is truly a pillar of the Oakland community.

Jonathan Klein
In January 2012, Jonathan Klein joined the GO staff full-time to serve as its first Executive Director. In fall 2008, Jonathan began working with parents, educators, and community to develop the network and organizations to advance GO's vision of an Oakland where all children receive the schooling and support they need to live successful, fulfilling lives. Prior to joining GO, Jonathan served as Chief Program Officer at the Rogers Family Foundation where he was responsible for investment strategy and partnership development to increase educational opportunity and student achievement in the City of Oakland. In addition, Jonathan served as Teach For America's Bay Area Executive Director from 1999-2003, served as Lecturer at the Haas School of Business on nonprofit leadership and management, taught elementary school in Compton Unified, and was a co-founder of the Oakland Schools Foundation and Revolution Foods. Jonathan is a fully credentialed California teacher and received a bachelor's degree in history from Yale University - where he served as student body president - and a Masters in Business Administration from the University of California at Berkeley. Jonathan lives with his wife and two children in Oakland's Dimond neighborhood

Mary Prime Lawrence
Mary is a parent of three beautiful children and a longtime Oakland resident. She also finds time to teach math to 4th and 5th graders in Oakland. She is known by just about everyone around her as a leader in her neighborhood - involved with education, public safety, community development, and bringing healthy food to their neighborhood. She graduated from Mills College with a degree in Political Science. She lives with her husband and children in the Las Palmas neighborhood of deep East Oakland.

Dr. Brian Stanley, Ed.D.
Dr. Brian Stanley is the Executive Director of the Oakland Schools Foundation, where he leads a team to generate, secure, and manage resources for Oakland public schools while helping those schools develop their own capacity to create the best learning environments for their students. Prior to his role at OSF, Brian worked for five years in a number of roles at the San Francisco Education Fund where he refined and strengthened program strategy, used data to deepen impact, and led the implementation of two strategic plans. Before joining the Education Fund he worked at California Tomorrow as Senior Associate for Public Education, Advocacy, and Alliance Building for the Community College Access and Equity Initiative. Prior to working at California Tomorrow, Brian spent seven years as the Director of Black Student Programs providing academic advising, advocacy, and support for Black, Latino, Asian Pacific American, first-generation, and low-income students at Saint Mary's College of California in Moraga. Brian was born in San Francisco and attended schools in San Francisco and Oakland. After graduating from Oakland High School, he received his B.A. at Saint Mary's College of California and his Doctorate in Educational Leadership from Mills College. He currently lives in West Oakland with his wife, two sons, and their chocolate lab named Wags.