Alina Adams is a New York City mom of 3 school-age children and a New York Times best-selling author of soap-opera tie-ins, figure-skating mysteries and romance novels. She is a contributing writer to TODAY Show Parenting, Mommy Poppins, BlogHer, Red Tricycle, Café Mom, and Kveller. After going through the NYC school application process with her own children and realizing just how convoluted, Draconian and needlessly complex it was, Alina resolved to help make all parents aware of all their school choices—and how to get them—via her books, “Getting Into NYC Kindergarten” and “Getting Into NYC High-School,” as well as her podcast, “NYC School Secrets: Parents Helping Parents.” Read more and listen at: www.NYCSchoolSecrets.com

Gregory Wickham was a student at Stuyvesant High School. He runs NYC School Tech, a site where people can donate spare laptops and tablets to students in need. He was a quarter-finalist in the 2014 Young Rewired State Festival of Code.

Glenn Mason was raised in Amityville on New York’s Long Island. As an undergraduate at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC, he earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting. Glenn is a former CPA who spent over 25 years in a variety of roles in corporate America. After leaving the corporate world he returned to college receiving his Master’s Degree in Social Studies Education from The City College of New York in Manhattan, where he currently resides. He is presently a New York City public high school history teacher. This is his thirteenth and final academic year in his newfound career.

Chloe Pashman is an Education Director of a CBO preschool in the Bronx. She has worked in the Early Childhood Education field for over twenty years.

Kalyca, who has taught middle school English in the Bronx for thirteen years, is the eldest child of a Registered Nurse and social worker originally from Altamonte Springs, FL. She steadily looks for ways to invest in educational dialogue for the creation of transformative change. She currently serves on the United Federation of Teachers’ Education Task Force to formulate suggestions around the Common Core Standards revisions. Kalyca has served as a Lead Teacher, Peer Instructional Coach, and a Cooperating Teacher for a Hunter College English Education Student Teacher.. Kalyca is also a Bronx trained mediator through the Institute of Mediation and Conflict Resolution (IMCR) and believes in restorative justice practices when holding adolescent children accountable. Her latest endeavor involves drafting a charter to open a social justice charter school in NYC. Kalyca holds a B.A. in Literature from The Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL ( Go Noles!) and a M.S. in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution from Columbia University, New York, NY. Most importantly, she finds solace in volunteering with her church’s worship arts’ team. In her spare time, Kalyca enjoys Facetime conversations with her nephews, especially when Elmo is involved, returning home to shop with her pioneering mom and sassy grandmother and taking long walks in Pelham Bay Park.

Tina Posterli is an advocacy and communications professional with a special interest in education. She is a past PTA co-president and has worked to advance the needs of school children living with Tourette Syndrome and on grassroots efforts that led to the passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. She is the mother of a 16-year-old daughter and is currently working in her hometown of Long Beach, New York to engage high school students in the political process.

Kathryn Marrow has been a member of Students First NY for almost three years and is the President of the Central Harlem Chapter. Kathryn is a single mother who is raising an amazing 9 year old son Christopher Lane. Christopher attends Kipp Infinity Charter School where he is excelling academically.

Kathryn is an advocate for Ed Reform and goes above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to getting the word out to parents about SFNY and the amazing work that the parent members are doing to bring about change. Both Kathryn and her son Christopher have participated in commercials that have been shot by SFNY.

Kathryn supports the Common Core because it levels the playing field and it ensures a quality education for all children regardless of their Zip code or economic background.

Laura Waters grew up in New York and attended New York public schools. Her mother was a social worker and her father was a social studies teacher in the New York City public school system; both were UFT members. She has lived in New Jersey for twenty-five years but her four kids and husband still make fun of her N.Y. accent. She writes about N.Y. and N.J. education policy and politics for a variety of publications, including her blog NJ Left Behind.

Vivett Dukes (nèe Hemans) is in her eighth year as a middle and high school English Language Arts teacher. For her first four years in the DOE, she taught in an all-male, all minority, urban public school in Southside Jamaica, Queens, erected for the express purpose of counteracting the pervasive school-to-prison pipeline that disproportionately impacts Black and Brown boys. Currently, she is teaching in a College Board middle and high school also in Jamaica, Queens, where the population of students she serves is diversified on cultural, religious and socio-economic planes. During her time as a teacher within the New York City Department of Education she has served as a member of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's Teacher Advisory Council 2014-2016 cohort, a classroom lab facilitator with Chancellor Carmen Fariña's Learning Partners Program, grade team leader, inquiry team leader, English Department Chairperson and Bethune Teaching Fellow for the New York Urban League.

Currently, in additional to teaching seventh-grade English Language Arts, she serves as a Lead Middle School Quality Initiative (MSQI) Reading Across All Disciplines (RAAD) Literacy Teacher, Advisor for the New York Times' Upfront magazine and Scholastic Inc., educational blogger for New York School Talk, and Co-CEO/Co-Founder of SpeakYaTruth.org and One Voice Online Blog Magazine. She also hosts a bi-weekly #SafeSpaceConvos Twitter chat about issues as the forefront of education.

At her core, Vivett is a passionate wife, mom, teacher-leader, keynote speaker, public intellectual, social activist, social advocate, and humanitarian who is dedicated to taking her voice outside of the classroom and into the public arena in an effort to elevate authentic conversations and grassroots changes in educational equity and human rights advocacy.