Arthur Eduardo Maduro Baraf, Ed.M.

Principal

As the Principal of Skyland, Arthur pledges to work with staff, students, families and community members to raise student achievement; build a more supportive and caring learning community; and help each student who walks through our doors discover his/her passions and develop into an independent, successful person.  But Arthur started his education career, after graduating from Wesleyan University in 1999, by leading teenagers on service learning trips to a Sioux reservation in South Dakota, up the coast of Maine on bicycles, and overseas to Valparaiso, Chile.  During this time, Arthur also lived in Ithaca, NY, where he was a special education teacher at The Alternative Community School, a CES 6-12 school.  He left Ithaca in 2001 to travel and work in South America, before returning stateside to earn a Masters in Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education.  In 2003, Arthur was a founding advisor of Skyland Community High School, and he went on to see his advisory, Skyland’s first graduating class (2006), walk the stage and go off to college.  One hundred percent of his graduating class was accepted to college and three were Daniels Fund scholars.  That year, Arthur was also named a Denver Mile High Teacher of the Year.  Arthur quickly transitioned from Advisor to Assistant Principal to Principal in 2006.  He earned his Principal’s License as a Ritchie Fellow and scholarship recipient at the University of Denver in 2007.

In addition to his work with Skyland, Arthur was a founder of the Denver Youth Slam Collective, a non-profit organization that encourages and supports the Denver youth poetry slam community.  He is also a 2008 candidate for a Masters in English from Middlebury’s Bread Loaf School of English.  Arthur plays in and captains Ultimate Frisbee teams, composes and plays music, shoots and edits video, photographs the world around him, dances salsa and meringue, hikes, bikes, cooks, runs and travels.  His is happily married to his wife Kelly, also an educational leader, and he plans on continuing his work in education for many years to come.

David Fulton, Ph.D.

Assistant Principal

Cindy Chavez

Business Manager

Cindy was working in the medical field when a brilliant principal, along with her former high school principal, asked her to help start a charter school in her home town. One school quickly grew into three schools. Then in 2002, just by chance, she was filling in for her principal at a principals’ conference in Estes Park, and she met Elliott Washor (co-director of The Big Picture Company), two students from the Met (a Providence Big Picture school), Jeff Park (the founder of three Big Picture schools in Denver) and many people from the Colorado Children’s Campaign. Watching the Met students talk about their passions and how the Met worked for them was just like a light going on in her head, and Cindy knew she wanted to be part of the Big Picture movement.  And the rest, as they say, is history.

Cindy has three grown, wonderful children. Now that the kids are all on their own, she will be enjoying traveling, cooking, playing with her big gray dog, and reading lots and lots of books. Cindy loves the students at Skyland and often refers to them as ‘my kids.’  Recently, Cindy was talking about Skyland to someone she had just met, and she kept referring to ‘my kids at Skyland.’ He finally asked her with a puzzled look, “How many kids do you have?”

Jeremy Cooper

Lead Advisor – Senior Institute

Sean McClung, MA

Advisor – Senior Institute

Sean McClung recently returned from Beijing, China where he was the Founding Director of Ivy Academy, an international school using Multiple Intelligences theory to recognize and develop the unique gifts of each student.  While living in Asia, Sean took advantage of the opportunity to study Mandarin Chinese and also traveled to Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and Japan.  Sean loves to eat, which happens to be a great way to learn about other cultures.  He also used his travels to continue his study of the religion and literature of the region, which he began at Boston University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree.

Born in California to parents who are also teachers, Sean has been involved in education since high school when he volunteered as an exhibit explainer at the Tech Museum of Science and was hired as a summer camp counselor helping students write business plans and web pages.  He went on to manage an after-school learning center in Oakland, tutor math at Juvenile Hall in San Francisco, teach middle school English in New York, and then earned his master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Ever since meeting the Big Picture School founders at the Met in Providence, Sean has been eager to get involved with this unique and innovative movement to make learning relevant through real-world experiences and relationships.  He is grateful to have the opportunity to learn and teach alongside his students and colleagues in the Skyland Community.

Thomas Absalom

Advisor – Junior Institute

Anne Blackburn

Advisor – Senior/Junior Institute

Anne Blackburn received her bachelor's degree in journalism at the University of Kansas and worked in a variety of advertising and public relations positions before becoming a news reporter for THE KANSAS CITY STAR. She left a full time journalism career to raise and homeschool her two children, during which time she founded Catalyst Communications, which provided writing, editing and public speaking services. Starting a new career, she returned to school to pursue a master's degree in education and taught at Ridgeview Academy and the Betty K. Marler Youth Services Center, facilities for incarcerated youth. Blackburn is passionate about helping students become published writers and is currently working on two book projects, A STUDENT'S GUIDE TO GETTING PUBLISHED, and STORIES FROM TEENS ON THE INSIDE. She is a first degree black belt in taekwondo, and teaches Sexual Harrassment, Assault, & Rape Prevention (SHARP) classes to women's groups. Her hobbies include: hiking, martial arts, video gaming, traveling, movies, gardening, and having fun with friends. She lives in the metro area with her two children, now 18 and 16.

Adrienne Williams, Ed.M.

Advisor - Junior Institute

Adrienne Williams is a proud Junior Institute Advisor at Skyland Community High School.  She grew up in Aurora, and she currently lives in the Denver metro area.  Adrienne graduated with a degree in Communication from the University of Northern Colorado in 2004, and she continued on to get her Master’s degree in Secondary English Education at CU Denver.  She graduated in the summer of 2007, and she is excited to be a part of Skyland Community High School and the Big Picture model of education!

Adrienne has a very diverse family background, as she is African American and Japanese.  She has a younger brother who is studying to become a physical education teacher, and two very hard-working and supportive parents.  She feels very fortunate to have a solid and dependable family.

In terms of her values as an educator, it is Adrienne’s goal to establish a caring classroom community in which students trust and communicate freely with her and with each other.  She feels it is also necessary to create an environment that fosters exploration of individual interests, collaboration with classmates and the community, and one in which students take pride in the quality of work that they produce.

Elliott Wynne

Advisor - Junior Institute

Realizing at a young age that traditional school did not work for him, Elliott began to look outside of the classroom for learning experiences.  This is when he truly became a learner.  These experiences grounded his belief that traditional schools are not for everyone, and that is why he is teaching at Skyland.  Prior to 2005, Elliott was working with the United States Department of Justice Community Relations Service and a local non-profit, PeaceJam, to help create dialogue and actions toward a peaceful world.  This allowed him to work one on one with students and the community to organize events and gather resources to help countries in Africa.  Elliott graduated in 2003 from Oklahoma State University with a degree in economics.  During the summers in college he interned at the Oklahoma State Senate and the United States Senate.  Elliott’s interests and passions included: music, bikes, politics, cooking, agriculture, design, fly-fishing, travel, architecture, art, poetry, and writing.

Gretchen Ferrazza

Advisor - Junior Institute

Gretchen comes from a long line of teachers, and has been teaching professionally in various capacities since she was fifteen. A veteran of both the Theater and the Army, Gretchen brings a natural and infectious enthusiasm to her work. She got her first job at the age of 12 working as a nanny for concert pianist, Samuel Sanders. She interned at Circle Repertory Theater Company (Off-Broadway) when she was 16 and was a student at Emma Willard School. After she graduated from High School, Gretchen spent a year studying in England on an E-SU scholarship.  She graduated Suma Cum Laude with honors from Metropolitan State College of Denver with a degree in Creative Writing, and currently studies education through the University of Colorado, Denver. 

Gretchen’s extensive travels in eastern and western Europe and her intense love of the arts weave together with her respect for both the individual and the community to make her someone who sees opportunity everywhere. Her stand is for all people to live fulfilled and satisfied lives, and it is her greatest joy to assist her students in developing a strong voice with powerful expression in the world. Gretchen cannot believe how lucky she is to get to work in partnership with her amazing and talented students, and the brilliant and committed staff at Skyland Community High School.  In her spare time, Gretchen raises her two fabulous teens, sings and dances with the Empire Lyric Players, writes poetry, and shamelessly promotes the Big Picture model of education and Skyland Community High School.

Chapin Benninghoff

Advisor - Junior Institute

Chapin believes that when you climb the wall, it becomes your duty to throw a rope down to help the next person up. Who he has become as a teacher, as a student, and as a person is a product of the relationships that life has blessed him with. In his years as a Nature Director at Camp Onyahsa of the Jamestown, New York Y.M.C.A., Camp Director Jon O'Brien taught Chapin that there is no greater promise than "I will care for this child." At Oberlin College, Professor Paul Dawson taught Chapin that the way we make decisions is often more important than the decisions we make. The owner of Annie's New York Pizza, Noah Pressler, taught Chapin to be proud of hard work and calloused hands. As a writer and editor at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, he learned that self-discipline is the soil in which creativity grows. In his years as a teacher at Science Skills Center High School in Brooklyn, New York, students like Georgia Johnson and Karina Cameron provided Chapin with examples of the power of self-reliance and quiet dignity. As an advisor, Chapin shares the lessons that have been granted to me, and learn more from my advisees.

Sirat Al Salim

Math Coordinator, Math Literacy Project

Sirat Al Salim has a B. A. in Mathematics and has completed his course work towards a Ph.D. in Curriculum Development and Educational Foundations, Policy and Practice at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He has over eleven years of experience as a secondary mathematics teacher in both traditional and alternative classroom settings and five years experience teaching mathematics at the collegiate level.  He has over nine years of experience in program administration, including his work as Program Director for a satellite, alternative high school program and his current service as Director of the Math Literacy Project, a nonprofit organization working to improve student achievement in mathematics.

Kevin Ryavec, M.S.

College Transition Counselor

ER/Science Advisor

Susan Siebert, Ed.M.

Special Education Coordinator

In her years as an educator, Susan Siebert has experienced many different roles. She has been a babysitter, hamstersitter, fish hatcher, "godmother", "bails bondsman", principal, nurse, secretary, therapist, and counselor.  She has been a history teacher; and has taught science, math, English, health, reading, and sex education.  She has harvested Black Widow spiders and been an exterminator, all in the same year.  Siebert has been accused of being too nice, too tough, too perky, and too involved.  But in all of her experiences, all 32 years of education, she would not change a minute of it.

Growing up in a suburb north of Chicago, Mrs. Siebert can't remember a day that she didn't want to be a teacher.  She went to the University of Denver and received her Bachelors in education and a Masters in special education.  She’s raised two wonderful children, including one aspiring teacher.  When Susan is not in the classroom, one can find her on the golf course, on the ski slopes, or behind a book or knitting needles. 

Landri Taylor

President, Business Community Representative

Chair, Facility Committee
Landri Taylor is the Vice President – Community Affairs for Forest City Stapleton, Inc., the development company that is transforming the former Stapleton International Airport into a new community of 12,000 homes and apartments, 35,000 jobs and more than 1,100 acres of parks and open space. He is responsible for small business development, job training and Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprise outreach.

Prior to working with Forest City Stapleton, Inc., Mr. Taylor ran Alpha Associates, a community consultant business. He has served on a number of boards and commissions throughout Denver including the 1998 Neighborhood Bond Campaign that added more that $100 million dollars of community development projects throughout Denver's neighborhoods. He has also served on the RTD Board helping spearhead completion of Denver's first light rail transit corridor. In addition, Mr. Taylor served on the Denver Public Library Commission, Sand Creek Regional Greenway, DIA Business Partnership and the Foundation for Educational Excellence.

Mr. Taylor currently serves on the boards of Rocky Mountain PBS, Skyland Community Charter High School, American Association for Blacks in Energy, Stapleton Foundation, Foundation for Educational Excellence, DIA Business Partnership, Community College of Denver Foundation, Shaka Franklin Foundation, University of Colorado School of Medicine Council of Advisors, and the Mayor’s Workforce Development Council.  Mr. Taylor is a 1995 graduate of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Denver program. 

Mr. Taylor received a Bachelor of the Arts in Biology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1974.  Mr. Taylor and his wife, Gloria, have three grown children, and reside in Denver, Colorado.

Emily Steed

Vice President, Community Representative

Emily Steed currently is the Training Director at the Colorado Coalition Against Domestic Violence (CCADV) and is responsible for all of CCADV's membership statewide trainings, including coordination and facilitation. She is also tasked with curriculum development and technical assistance to member organizations.

Emily graduated with a BA in Political Science and Black Studies from Colorado College and is pursuing a Masters Degree in Nonprofit Management.  Her first job involved HIV/AIDS education and prevention: she was an HIV/AIDS prevention specialist specifically focusing on youth, women and communities of color. Emily traveled the metro-area giving presentations to schools, businesses, treatment centers, etc. and facilitated community-wide trainings.  She developed and facilitated group workshops for high-risk women on healthy relationships and self-care. She was also a certified HIV tester, counselor, the co-chair of the Women of Color conference and the co-chair of the cultural competency committee. During this time Emily also mentored a Skyland student.

Between work and school, Emily's hobbies include playing soccer, making homemade greeting cards and spending time with family and friends, especially her Godson.  

Martha (Muffy) Montemayor

Treasurer, Former Mentor, Community Representative

Chair, Budget & Finance Committee

Ms Montemayor is an experienced "serial entrepreneur" who has founded or participated in a series of successful technology companies. The first was National Supervisory Network, later known as NSN Network Services, Ltd (NSN), a global satellite communications company she co-founded in 1988. As President of NSN, she took the company from a start-up venture to a recognized, international leader in small-aperture satellite systems. The company sold in 1997.  Concurrently, in 1995, she helped launch VailNet / ColoradoNet, a small Internet services provider in the Rocky Mountains.  Her third venture was Fundwell.com, an on-line distance learning web site for non-profit organizations. Fundwell is a graduate level on-line certificate course in non-profit fundraising accredited through Columbia College of the Arts in Chicago, IL.

Since 2001 she has been making video games with both her own Hypernova Games Inc and with Boulder-based game developer Evil Genius Corp. She has written or published four game titles to date, including casual games like “Rhiannon's Realm: Celtic Mahjongg Solitaire,” published on Real Arcade; and a Dungeons and Dragons d20 RPG core setting book, “Moons of Arksyra.”   Ms. Montemayor studied accounting at Colorado Mountain College in Vail, CO.  She has served on the Skyland Community High School board since 2003 years, first as the mentor representative, then as the school's volunteer accountant during its critical start-up years. She is now the Board Treasurer and chairs the Budget and Financial Oversight Committee.  She has 6 children, 4 in Denver Public Schools.

"When you reach the top, keep climbing." -Zen Proverb

Brenda Keys

Founding Parent, Alumni Parent Representative

Tony Weathersby

Parent Representative, E-Team Member

I am grateful that my son and daughter are students at Skyland because it has caused me to learn first hand about the outstanding, effective and transforming impact that the Big Picture educational philosophy has on every student that is willing to receive the gift.  My wife, Belinda and I, home school our younger children and have found this philosophy to be very congruent with our home schooling objectives.

I have been married to Belinda Weathersby for almost 18 years and we are in the process of raising six girls and two boys.  Belinda and I have been involved in parenting education through the “Growing Kids God’s Way” ministry for over 10 years.  We also served on the “Marriage Encounter” Executive board for 5 years.  I served on the Adventist Community Service Center Board for one year and was involved in fund raising.  As a police officer, I was involved in the Law Related Education program developed by a professor at Colorado University.  For 2 years I taught semester long classes at George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Montbello High Schools.

During the last 16 ½ years, I have been a Police Officer on the Denver Police Department currently specializing in the implementation of the 10 million dollar records management system.  My current responsibilities involve developing and implementing customized and phased training for over 1,000 patrol, investigation, and administration employees.  In addition, I work with several city and state agencies to interface the new records management system with their existing systems.  These agencies include the Denver District Attorney office, the Colorado Bureau of Investigations, the Denver Office of the City Attorney, Denver County Courts, Denver Municipal Court, the Denver Sheriff Department, the Combined Communication Center of Denver, and Denver Technology Services.

Belinda and I are currently own a home based business with health and wellness company, ViSalus Sciences, and I have a home based SOHO computer support business.  We believe in striving for excellence in all things and work hard to make a positive difference in the lives of others.  We are excited to make a significant contribution to the Skyland Community High School by serving on the board.

Foster Brashear

Mentor Representative

Michael Davis

Community Representative

Hanna B. Weston, J.D., M.A.

Community Representative

Ms. Weston grew up in Iowa City, Iowa, a small mid-western university town where her father taught at the University. She attended the neighborhood elementary school and the University High School. In high school most of her teachers were student teachers at the University and, because the fees were low, many students came from near by rural communities. She attended Oberlin College, a liberal arts college in Ohio that prides itself on having been being a stop on the under-ground railroad. She majored in European History and graduated in 1958. After graduation Ms. Weston taught history in grades 9, 11 and 12 for two years in a private girls' school in New Haven, Connecticut. Upon moving to New York City, she studied history at Columbia University, where she earned a Master's degree. Ms. Weston then taught history to grades 10 and 11 at the Dalton School, a private school in Manhattan. Returning to New Haven she taught Western Civilization at the local community college and taught in the City adult literacy program.

With husband and baby son in tow Ms Weston returned to Iowa City where her husband taught at the University of Iowa Law school and her daughter was born in 1966. She lived in Iowa City from 1966 until moving to Denver in 2005. During those years she divorced and remarried, taught at the local community college and was very active in the ACLU in which she was involved at the local, state and national levels. Ms. Weston represented Iowa on the National board of the ACLU from l974 to l980, when, largely inspired by the ACLU, she resigned to attend law school. She graduated from Law school in l983, and opened a law practice in partnership with her husband. They moved to Denver in 2005. Ms. Weston is an active volunteer with Planned Parenthood and VORP, a program with teen offenders.

Charles Nadler, J.D.

Community Representative

Mr. Nadler was born in New York City on October 19, 1940, raised in Queens and obtained his K-12 education in the NYC public schools, where his father was a math teacher, department head, principal and college professor. After earning his AB at Columbia College in philosophy and sociology in June 1962, Mr. Nadler served as a line officer on active duty with the U.S. Navy aboard a destroyer and destroyer escort, reaching the rank of LT.

On completing all but the dissertation in philosophy at Columbia University (1964-1969), Mr. Nadler taught logic and philosophy of science at Central Washington State University -then College (1969-1974).  He was hired by the National Education Association’s Iowa State Education Association in 1975 to run the Iowa Higher Education Association, where he organized faculty locals for collective bargaining, negotiated contracts, conducted strikes for two private sector locals and presented cases to fact finding, interest arbitration and grievance arbitration. In 1982, he entered law school at the University of Iowa College of Law, and in 1984, set up a law practice with his wife Hanna Weston (Nadler & Weston). Their practice was general, but most of his work was in juvenile court (delinquency and need cases), and in criminal defense in the state and federal district and appellate courts up to and including the United States Supreme Court. Mr. Nadler has taught law in public and private community colleges in Iowa and Colorado part time from 1984.

In November 2005, Mr. Nadler and his wife moved to Denver, Colorado, to be closer to family, were admitted to the Colorado Bar in August 2006, and practice law in Denver. He is a card-carrying member of the American Legion, and also the American Civil Liberties Union (since 1966); and has served on the boards of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington and Iowa. He was a founder and board member of the Iowa Association of Mediators – then Iowa Association for Dispute Resolution. He was also a founder and main force behind the Northern Iowa Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Mr. Nadler is an officer and board member of the Downtown Denver Residents Organization, a member of the CID Working Group of the Downtown Denver Partnership, and a member of several political organizations. He has been politically active since my teenage years, doing get out the vote and working on political campaigns.

Whitney Painter

Community Representative, Former Community Outreach Coordinator

Whitney Painter brings two years of experience as Community Outreach Coordinator with Skyland Community High School, along with a strong commitment to education and youth empowerment.

Her background includes working in the United States Senate, producing news for Cable News Network (CNN) and National Public Radio (NPR), covering domestic policy and the White House, reporting on congressional action important to women and families, media relations on behalf of various environmental organizations and advocacy for innovative education.

Ms. Painter’s commitment to social justice and change underpin her work with Skyland, as well as her dedication to expanding renewable energy in Colorado through her new solar electric installation business.

Lisa Martin, MA.Ed.

Community Representative, Former Special Education Director

Lisa Martin is currently the Manager at MHM Educational Services, LLC in Denver, CO. Martin is a native to Colorado and received her BA from the University of Colorado at Boulder in Women’s Studies. In addition, Lisa Martin obtained her teaching license at Fort Lewis College in 1996 and completed her MA in Education at the University of Colorado at Denver in 2004. Martin has been a Social Studies teacher for over 10 years and is currently a teacher instructor, mentor, and educational consultant in several schools in the Denver area.

Arthur Eduardo Maduro Baraf, Ed.M.

Principal

As the Principal of Skyland, Arthur pledges to work with staff, students, families and community members to raise student achievement; build a more supportive and caring learning community; and help each student who walks through our doors discover his/her passions and develop into an independent, successful person.  But Arthur started his education career, after graduating from Wesleyan University in 1999, by leading teenagers on service learning trips to a Sioux reservation in South Dakota, up the coast of Maine on bicycles, and overseas to Valparaiso, Chile.  During this time, Arthur also lived in Ithaca, NY, where he was a special education teacher at The Alternative Community School, a CES 6-12 school.  He left Ithaca in 2001 to travel and work in South America, before returning stateside to earn a Masters in Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education.  In 2003, Arthur was a founding advisor of Skyland Community High School, and he went on to see his advisory, Skyland’s first graduating class (2006), walk the stage and go off to college.  One hundred percent of his graduating class was accepted to college and three were Daniels Fund scholars.  That year, Arthur was also named a Denver Mile High Teacher of the Year.  Arthur quickly transitioned from Advisor to Assistant Principal to Principal in 2006.  He earned his Principal’s License as a Ritchie Fellow and scholarship recipient at the University of Denver in 2007.

In addition to his work with Skyland, Arthur was a founder of the Denver Youth Slam Collective, a non-profit organization that encourages and supports the Denver youth poetry slam community.  He is also a 2008 candidate for a Masters in English from Middlebury’s Bread Loaf School of English.  Arthur plays in and captains Ultimate Frisbee teams, composes and plays music, shoots and edits video, photographs the world around him, dances salsa and meringue, hikes, bikes, cooks, runs and travels.  His is happily married to his wife Kelly, also an educational leader, and he plans on continuing his work in education for many years to come.

David Fulton, Ph.D.

Assistant Principal

Jeremy Cooper

Staff Representative

Lead Advisor – Senior Institute