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VVS Board of Trustees
The Verde Valley School Board of Trustees is the governing body of the school. The diverse group comes from a broad cross-section of the country and is comprised of former students, parents, faculty, local Sedona residents and people from across the country who have skills and values aligned to the school’s vision.
At Verde Valley School we welcome individuals willing to serve on the Board of Trustees, in particulars those who possess a specific skill set, such as financial, business, legal, or fundraising skills.
VVS GOVERNANCE
The Board of Trustees is composed of not less than nine nor more than eighteen members. Board members serve a term of three years, beginning July 1. Board members are limited to three consecutive terms of three years (except the immediate past president, who serves no less than one year past the end of her or his term). Board members must attend eight telephonic board meetings per year and two on campus meetings. On campus meetings are held in January and June. The Board of Trustees works closely with the Head of School, and the relationship should be one of trust and transparent communications. It is not the role of the Board to be involved in the day to day operations of the school, such as specific management, personnel, or curricular issues.
Current Board Members
Current Board Members
The Role of the Verde Valley School Board of Trustees
The Board of Trustees is the governing body of the School. Its role is to perform the following duties:
- Policy development and approval
- Hiring and regularly evaluating the head of school
- Approving an annual budget
- Developing and implementing a strategic plan
- Overseeing financial accountability
- Ensuring that in broad terms the school is fulfilling its mission
- Fundraising and promoting the image of the school
- Ensuring the school is following good governance models
- Responsibility for filling board positions and ensuring those individuals are committed to the mission of the school
- Ensure all actions are transparent, observe appropriate confidentiality, and are in furtherance of the best interests of the school
The obligations of a VVS Board of Trustees Member include:
- Regularly attend board and committee meetings.
- Actively serve on at least one, preferably two, board committees.
- Donate time and expertise to the school.
- Financially support the school in an amount that trustee can afford and help with fundraising. 100 percent board financial support is required.
- Understand the duties of a board member:
- Policy development and approval
- Hiring the head of school
- Approving an annual budget
- Developing a strategic plan
- Overseeing financial accountability
- Ensuring that in broad terms the school is fulfilling its mission
- Fundraising and promoting the image of the school
BOARD COMMITTEES
Verde Valley School Board of Trustees serve on six standing committees: Finance, Executive, Governance, Education Program & Services Committee, Advancement Committee and Head of School Annual Evaluation and Compensation Committee.
The Finance Committee is chaired by Tom Standring and is commissioned by and responsible to the Board of Trustees. It has the responsibility for working with the Head of School and Chief Financial Officer (CFO)/ Business Management Provider to create the upcoming fiscal year budget; presenting budget recommendations to the Board; monitoring implementation of the approved budget on a regular basis and recommending proposed budget revisions; recommending to the Board appropriate policies for the management of the School’s assets. The finance committee shall be assisted by the Head of School and CFO/Business Management Provider.
The Executive Committee is chaired by Richard Greenberg. Members are limited to President, Vice President(s), Secretary and Treasurer of the Board. The Executive Committee is responsible for general oversight of the Board; offers guidance and support to the various Committees and the Head of School on an ad hoc basis.
The Governance Committee is chaired by Frances Smith-Hawley and is commissioned by and responsible to the Board of Trustees to assume the primary responsibility for matters pertaining to the Board of Trustees, orientation, training, and evaluation in accordance with the bylaws of the school as well as established policies and practices approved by the Board of Trustees. The Governance Committee also vets nominees to the Board of Trustees and makes recommendations to the Board as a whole.
The Education Program & Services Committee is chaired by Johanna McPherson and is commissioned by and responsible to the Board of Trustees to assume the primary responsibility for working with the Head of School to define academic excellence, ensure that all Board Members know the educational promises that were made to the Community, understand the applicable accreditation processes, and to devise clear and consistent measures to monitor these goals.
The Advancement Committee is chaired by Akshay Agrawal and assumes the primary responsibility for Board of Trustees recruitment and nominations, alumni relations and raising non-grant funds to support the School’s Mission. The Board president, Vice-president(s), and Secretary, as well as several board members of the VVSF serve on this committee. Non-Board members can serve as advisory members.
The Head of School Annual Evaluation and Compensation Committee shall be comprised of President, Vice President(s), Secretary, Treasurer of the Board and a Board Member who is a professional educator.
Akshay Agrawal, '06
Board of Trustees & VVS Foundation Board
Akshay Agrawal has spent as much time in the IT field as he has tinkering with cars in the past 9 years. His latest venture is renting out cars on a car sharing platform. Akshay enjoys traveling, something that is probably a result of having lived in 3 different countries and 9 different cities. Him and his wife Mary take a lot of road trips along the east coast. In his day job, Akshay is a customer success manager for Flexera Software. His passions include cars and people, thus aptly named his latest venture, Cars & People. His goal with joining VVS is to increase young alumni engagement as the school moves into a phase of growth. Akshay graduated from Arizona State University with a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering.Chris Means, '75
Board of Trustees
I hope to contribute to VVS as a board member or consultant as a means of giving back for all that it has done for me and my goal is to help with the building improvements for the school and enhance the VVS experience for students and faculty. I found my passion for building early in life. I have been working in construction since 1977. I have been a general contractor for the last 39 years in both residential and commercial projects in my home town of Santa Rosa, CA. I have had the pleasure my having both of my sons work with me on their journeys to their own careers. I enjoy active outdoor activities, mushroom foraging, home winemaking, cooking, and collecting Native American art.Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim
Board of Trustees
Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim is a contributing classical music critic for the New York Times and the founder and artistic director of Beginner’s Ear, where she curates listening experiences combining meditation and music.
Corinna has won honors for her fresh writing and for her ability to demystify classical music with empathy and humor. She is the recipient of the 2015 Cremona Mondomusica Prize in Communication and was the critic in residence at the American Academy of Rome in 2018. Before joining the team of Times critics she contributed articles to the Wall Street Journal, the Jerusalem Post, Tablet, the Classical Review, Symphony Magazine, and other publications.
Since creating Beginner’s Ear in 2019, Corinna has led live music meditations for a diverse range of listeners in places including a yoga studio, a high school, a federal detention center, a sunken garden and a dance studio. Corinna uses meditation and sound to help people become better at listening – not just to music, but to themselves and each other.
Born to German parents in Brussels, Corinna obtained a B.A. in music and psychology from Royal Holloway College (University of London), an M.A. in Renaissance Theory and Culture from Sussex University and a doctorate from Cambridge University. She wrote her Ph.D thesis on the 17th-century Jewish Venetian poet Sara Copio Sullam. In February 2020 she completed the Mindfulness Teacher Training Program through MNDFL in New York City.
Corinna lives in Westchester with her husband, three children, and a goldendoodle named Lucky.
Frances B. Hawley
Secretary, Board of Trustees
Frances Hawley lives in Sedona with her husband, Randy Hawley, and their two four-legged dog children, Muffy and Kitty. She has been on the VVS Board for 2 years and is on the Governance and Finance committees and chairs the Education and Services Committee.Frances graduated from Texas Western College/University of Texas at El Paso with a B.A. in 1967 and North Texas State University, Denton, Texas, with a Master’s of Education Degree in 1975 and a Ph.D. in Administrative Leadership in 1981. After graduating with her B.A., Frances began her career in education while teaching in San Antonio, TX and continued in Oklahoma City, OK and Richardson, TX, where she became a district consultant and elementary principal.
During her tenures in Texas, she was active in the local and state principal’s associations, holding offices in both and chair of the local YMCA. She wrote and presented two of the modules in The National Elementary Principal’s Association’s Principal’s Academy and was active in national staff development, and curriculum and supervision organizations. Frances created and administered one of three year-round elementary schools in her district of 35 elementary schools.
Moving back to the Mid-west, Frances became a director of instruction and superintendent in two K-8 districts before retiring in 2006. During her career she presented staff development internationally and nationally in effective instructional practices, evaluation strategies, discipline and classroom management.
She and Randy moved to their Sedona home in 2013 where Frances serves as president of her homeowner’s association, editor of the newsletter, and is a committee chair.
Joanna McPherson
Board of Trustees
I am Joanna Horton McPherson, educator, and writer-actor-artist originally from Maine. I came to Sedona in 2014 to serve as the dean at Verde Valley School, and fell in love with the vision & future of the school. My background is in theatre and education for social justice, teaching youth and adults all over the country, including with resettled refugee youth to tell their stories in original plays for public performance. One recent program brought me to Rwanda to develop a play exploring girls leadership and gender equality. Learning as my purpose; seeking and facilitating diverse ways to discover and uplift the world around us, starting from within. I have founded a few non-profits and a private acting studio over the years. Most recently, I founded a preschool in Sedona. My educational background is from Vassar College where I received my Bachelor’s degree and Harvard University for my Master’s in Education.
Melissa Shanahan, '83
Board of Trustees
With over twenty years experience working with adolescents and their families, Melissa and her company Educational Pathways, have over twenty years experience working with adolescents and their families. Her work focusses on offering a personal approach to navigating the best possible educational pathway for a child, whether in a more traditional school setting, therapeutic environment or wilderness program. As a counselor in drug and alcohol programs, residential treatment facilities, public high schools and outdoor education programs, Melissa clearly understands the turmoil students face today and the need for parents to stay committed to keeping their children on track. Melissa works face-to-face with families all over the United States, regularly tours schools and programs, and attends conferences in order to stay current with the various issues and special needs that affect students today. Melissa earned a M.A. in Counseling Psychology from the University of Denver and lives in Boulder, Colorado with her husband and two children.Pat Goudvis, '71
Board of Trustees
Pat was born and raised in a small town in Ohio. After Verde Valley she studied photography and film at the California College of Arts and Crafts and some years later completed an MA in Latin American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. She is fluent in Spanish.She credits her Verde Valley experience with sparking her interest in crossing borders and exploring other cultures. She became a photojournalist and then an independent documentary filmmaker, focusing primarily on the struggle for human rights and social justice in Central America. She is done with filmmaking but still active in organizations working on human rights and mental health and the conservation of tropical ecosystems in Central America. She is a volunteer interpreter for lawyers representing asylum seekers and unaccompanied minors.
She lives in Cambridge, MA in a cohousing community where she much prefers doing physical labor as opposed to attending meetings, another characteristic she attributes to her VVS days. She has two grown children.
Richard Greenberg, '71
President, Board of Trustees & Foundation Trustee
Executive Committee Head
Richard Greenberg is a father of four and the author of “Raising Children That Other People Like to be Around”. A native of Los Angeles, California, Richard attended Verde Valley School from 1967 to 1971. While at VVS, Richard learned the value of community, hard work, and intercultural understanding. Following Verde Valley, Greenberg graduated from UCLA with a Bachelor’s degree in English and immediately went to work as the personal assistant to Art Garfunkel. Choosing to stay in Los Angeles and marry his childhood sweetheart, Richard became active in the television industry while he and his wife, JoAnn, began building their family. Three sons and one gorgeous, intelligent, and flawless daughter later, the Greenbergs were regularly asked how they got “such good kids.” In response, Richard wrote “Raising Children That Other People like to be Around.” His objective was to offer logical, common sense guidelines for people creating their own families and to help young parents, especially mothers, understand a father’s point of view.Shawn Krause
Board of Trustees & VVS Foundation Board
Shawn Krause grew up in St. Louis MO. He graduated from the University of Missouri, Columbia, where he earned a degree in Art and a Minor in Art History and Archaeology. He went on to study Character Animation at California Institute of the Arts (Cal Arts), and after a year continued on to his career at Pixar.Shawn joined Pixar Animation Studios during Toy Story. He worked as an animator on a number of Pixar’s feature films including A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monster, Inc., Cars, Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles.
Krause served as directing animator on the Academy Award®-winning feature, Up and as a supervising animator on Disney•Pixar’s Academy Award®-winning feature Inside Out. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Shawn is married to Hamilton and Babs Warren’s granddaughter, Fiona. They currently live in the San Francisco Bay area with their two young children.
Tom Standring, '78
Treasurer, Board of Trustees
After graduating from VVS, and starting and stopping on multiple paths, Tom graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in Business Administration and immediately started studying for and passing the CPA exam in Tucson.
Tom worked at public accounting firm Clifton Gunderson (now Clifton Larson Allen) in Tucson, then started another path and moved to San Diego to work for an Audit client. After working there and a couple smaller firms, Tom moved away from traditional public accounting once again and joined a business that audits Real Estate Brokers throughout North America.
Became owner of that business in late 2007 and continues actively participating in all aspects of the business today.
Tom is currently licensed as a CPA in both Arizona and California.
After 20+ years in San Diego, Tom recently moved back to Tucson, which has “always felt like home”.
When not traveling for work, Tom enjoys:
- traveling for fun with his lovely wife Bridget
- being an avid fan of University of Arizona Sports
- collecting antique bottles- from the turn of the 20th Century. Before machines !
Verde Valley School
Verde Valley School is a co-educational, International Baccalaureate boarding and day school for students in grades 9-12.
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