2019-2020 Cohort

Hello, I am Karl Benz. Professionally, I am the Arkansas Out of School Time Network (AOSN) Professional Development and Leadership Coordinator. In this role I support OST professionals by coordinating Best Practices (BPAs) and STEM Academies, both promoting awareness of topics, trends and practices essential to offering quality expanded learning opportunities. In addition I facilitate our Leadership In Action (LIA) program, that is a chance for experienced OST practitioners to gain valuable leadership experiences and share insights with other leaders in a learning community format. Other duties include representing our organization at partner meetings, co-creating content for our online learning platform- the Youth Development Institute (YDI) and administering our Youth Worker Orientation Certificate (YWOC) Program. I come to OST with experience as a Recreation Programmer with the City of Little Rock, and as a former OST program director with the Aviators program- a community based afterschool program located in a multi-family residential facility. Personally, I am a father of three and married to a wonderful woman. I spend most of my free time visiting parks, walking the dog and attending school functions.

Terrance L. Cauley is a Assistant Director in the Department of Youth, Family & Clinical Services at Better Family Life, Inc., a 501c3 Social Service Agency in St. Louis, Missouri. As a grant writing team member, he has help to secure over 1.5 million dollars in funding for positive youth development. At the heart of Mr. Cauley's experience includes youth programs and research in the area of youth violence and conflict resolution / prevention, healthy relationships, black youth culture & identity, and the use of affective praxis in academics, athletics & activism.

His youth programs concentrate on promoting the assessment and functioning of the African Personality for optimal identity stasis in the context of MEES (mundane extreme environmental stress). To this end he has researched, written and presented work at various academic and professional development seminars over the last 20 years. Mr. Cauley's most recent work, "The Positive Effects of Cultural Pride Reinforcement (CPR) for African American Youth," was presented at the MAACE 2018 Conference.

He is currently building on this concept in a forthcoming work titled, "BALLERS: Building Affective Learned Liberated Emotional Regulations Skills, in African American Youth through Academics, Athletics, Arts & Activism.” Additionally, he currently serves as a consulting member on the committee for Youth Violence Prevention and the Education Youth Equity Initiative, through the Deaconess Foundation for Childhood Wellbeing & Washington University in St. Louis, Mo.

Tameyer Evans is the Program Manager of the Afterschool Care Program that sits within the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS). As the Program Manager, Tameyer leads the State’s approach to ensuring that all children ages 5-17 have access to high-quality out-of-school time care in their local community. The Afterschool Care Program provides federal funding to non-profit organizations and local public entities that are youth serving agencies. The funding given is specifically to support afterschool, summer and intercession programming for eligible youth.

Tameyer has been a public servant for 15 years and has used her professional expertise to influence subsidized childcare policy and procedures as well as inform partner entities about the importance of early education initiatives and strong youth development practices in the populations they serve.

Tameyer’s passion for out-of-school time programming comes from her own participation in state/grant funded afterschool and summer programs that she participated in throughout her adolescent years. She was able to fully understand the positive impact that these offerings had on her and her siblings. This participation fueled a dedication to ensuring that youth behind her had the same opportunities that were afforded to her.

Tameyer attended and graduated from both Georgia Southern University (2004) and Georgia State University (2012) and enjoys community work, traveling, and spending quality time with family and friends.

Edward L. Franklin M.A.R., M.DIv. is the President and Chief Executive Officer for Voice of Hope Ministries based in West Dallas Dallas, Texas and has had the wonderful opportunity to lead the out-of-school time ministry for 15 years.

A native of Philadelphia, PA, Edward earned his Bachelor’s degree in psychology from Temple University, a Masters in Counseling and a Masters in Divinity from Westminster Theological Seminary. He is currently pursuing his D. Min from Knox Theological Seminary.

He was a behavior specialist and mobile therapist for children and families before being recruited to Dallas. He’s been an adjuct professor of world religions at Cedar Valley College and urban ministry at Westminster Theological Seminary Dallas campus. He planted and pastored New Hope Church and has been involved in Christian community development for many years.

He lives in West Dallas Dallas, Texas and is the blessed husband of Michele and father of three teenagers Hannah, Arielle and Ethan.

With the big dream that one day all afterschool & summer enrichment programs will operate in their own dedicated spaces, Amy Franks has a passion for ensuring families have access to a safe environment that provides diverse, enriching experiences for children and youth, regardless of circumstance. In her twenty years of experience in the out-of-school time arena, she has worked in afterschool programs in every capacity, beginning as a group leader at an elementary school in college through becoming the head of the School-Community Relations Department in Orange County Schools in Hillsborough, North Carolina, overseeing all OST programs for the entire school district. Amy, a former classroom teacher who holds a B.A. in English Education, believing her passion to be advocating the awareness of and addressing the social and emotional needs of children and youth, made the decision to leave the classroom and has never looked back. She has worked primarily in school-based programs but has served in community-based and non-profit organizations as well, providing direct services, supervising others who provide direct services, volunteering in programs, and serving on committees that address needs related to the provision of high-quality afterschool programs. Amy is currently the education partnerships manager at a Durham-based North Carolina non-profit called Book Harvest where her work keeps her connected to school systems across the state through the oversight of programs that provide free access to and ownership of books to students while on summer break and through leading afterschool-based book clubs. Additionally, Amy is in her second year as a board member of the North Carolina Center for Afterschool Programs and she is a state and national presenter at out-of-school-time conferences. Known to students as "Miss Amy," she enjoys boot camp style workouts, has a fascination for roller derby, and is the proud human companion of a Lynx point Siamese cat named Fancy.

What started out as an insatiable curiosity as a child, and a banning from the local public library at eight years old, has evolved into my career as a youth librarian and children’s book author and illustrator (don’t worry, the irony is not lost on me).

With a focus on curriculum development for informal learning environments during undergrad (BA) and an emphasis on human-centered design and equity in graduate school (MSLIS) I have steeped myself in informal pedagogies and best practices in order to make learning fun and transformative for all who walk into the library.

By harnessing the power of play, partnering with established community groups and supporting classroom initiatives, I’m helping to re-write the narrative of what a public library is as well as what OST learning looks like in-between the stacks.

A public librarian by day with Anythink, Perl Mack in Denver, Colorado, my evening and weekends are all about books in a different context altogether -- writing and illustrating them. You can find me on the shelves with Big Breath: A Guided Meditation for Kids, The Kraken’s Rules for Making Friends, Transforming Your Library into a Learning Playground, or in-between them hosting spy clubs, storytimes, cooking classes and the like.

Brad Lademann serves as the Resource Center Coordinator for the Missouri AfterSchool Network (MASN). He has over 15 years of experience working with middle school and high school students in a variety of capacities. He has worked as a youth pastor, a teacher, a mentor, a coach, and an after school program coordinator. Specifically, in the world of afterschool, Brad worked for Communities In Schools of Cape Fear in Wilmington, NC where he ran afterschool programs for middle school and high school students.

In his role as Resource Center Coordinator, Brad works with nine AfterSchool Regional Educators (AREs) around the state of Missouri. He is responsible for communication with the AREs, training and development of the AREs, and working with the MASN team to improve the quality of after school and out of school time programs across the state.

In his life outside the office, Brad has a family of five, with his wife and one child at home and two children out making their way in the world. In his so-called “spare time”, he drives his youngest son to soccer practices and games and also finds time to fit in the occasional pick-up basketball game.

Mariana Lopez Quintanilla is a native of Venezuela. She studied Interior Design in Institute Villasmil de Leon and Education in Universidad Metropolitana. She worked as the Assistant Principal at Institute Nuevo Amanecer, a school for students with ADHD, where she founded Creative Afternoons after school program. In 2007, she started working in the Non Profit sector with Gulf Coast Jewish Family Services. As the Program Manager of the Refugee Youth and Family Program for Miami-Dade County, she ensures families understood the educational system, and that students have tutoring services and summer programs that supported their academic and social development. In 2008, Mariana joined the largest out of school time provider in the San Francisco Bay Area, and currently, she manages eight Bay Area Community Resources (BACR) programs, serving more than 10000 students a year. Since 2014 she has been training volunteers in Cultural Sensitivity to equip them with tools before they start volunteering in Title I schools. For the last six years, she has been an active board member of San Rafael City Schools Foundation, HeadsUp, where she continues to be an advocate for immigrant children and families in Marin County.

In 2014, Mariana received the BACR Best Practices Award for After School Programs and a Golden Bell Award from the Marin County Office of Education. She completed a fellowship program in 2016 with the National Equity Project and co-facilitate the Leading for Equity Institute for Educators from around the country in 2018. She is passionate about equity in education, implementing strategies to develop quality after school programs, and finding resources that inspire students to learn. She is also certified to conduct program observations to measure quality in out of school time STEM activities using the Dimension of Success Tool from the PEAR Institute.

Yvonne Mejias is the Improvement and Impact Manager at the Youth Development Resource Center (YDRC) in Detroit, Michigan. The YDRC “supports a network of Detroit-area youth development providers to strengthen their individual and collective impact on youth through shared measurement, continuous quality improvement, professional development and advocacy” (YDRC, 2019). As the Improvement and Impact Manager, Yvonne builds and nurtures a network of provider partners engaged in continuous quality improvement efforts for Detroit youth development programs. Yvonne also oversees and supports cohorts of quality coach assessors and trainers to expand quality improvement and professional development delivery capacity, and to ensure data quality, analysis, and management.

Prior to this role, Yvonne developed and implemented curricula centered on social-emotional learning to support academic and life outcomes. Further professional career opportunities have provided Yvonne with experience in schools as a classroom teacher, diversity, equity, and inclusion coordinator, and afterschool coordinator, in working with parent advocacy groups, and in scaling a start-up nonprofit organization.

Yvonne holds a Master of Public Administration from the University of Southern California as well as a Master of Education in Education Policy and Leadership from Marquette University. Yvonne is also a state certified teacher, is trained in restorative practices and circles, and is a Teach for America alumna

Jose Mendez is the Out of School Time Coordinator for the City of Somerville. This is a cross-sector, collective impact initiative that includes OST program providers throughout Somerville, the City’s Department of Health and Human Services, Somerville Public Schools, Somerville families and other stakeholders.

Over the past 10 years Jose has developed and led several out of school time and social service programs through entities such as the Cambridge Community Center, the City of Cambridge and the YMCA .

Major projects have included developing the first Winter Farmer’s Market in the City of Cambridge, serving as the host of Former Governor Deval Patrick's roundtable announcing additional funding for the Youth Works program, and serving as an operations review liaison to the Sri Lankan YMCA.

Jose holds a B.A. in Political Science from University of California and an M.S. in Human Service from Springfield College.

Andrew Neal is Co-Founder and Director of Brookside Community Play, a youth development program in inner-city Indianapolis. Andrew grew up in Omaha, Nebraska where he was exposed to diversity at an early age. He earned his B.A. in Religious Studies from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, but more importantly he gained an appreciation for urban youth work while in college. After spending time in non-profit management and fundraising while working for the Boy Scouts of America and the Denver Rescue Mission, he moved to Indianapolis with his wife and children in 2015.

In 2016, Andrew joined Brookside Community Church to help create and launch a youth development initiative designed to help kids overcome trauma through the power of play. Over the past three years, this initiative has grown to serve over 250 children and youth through afterschool and summertime programs. Currently, Andrew leads the vision and mission of Brookside Community Play, while also providing executive leadership of Brookside Community Development Corporation’s fundraising operations. Andrew and his wife, Dani, have three wonderful and crazy boys (ages 4, 2, and 4 months).

Priscilla Parchia has worked in the OST field since her very first job at circus camp at age 15 and has since worked as an educator across the country in the Northeast, Southeast, and Midwest as a counselor, program director, and director. For the past 11 years, she has worked in the Bay Area with Oakland Unified School District as a youth developer, coordinator, teacher and curriculum specialist. She currently supports programs across Oakland as a Program Manager for the Expanded Learning Department in Oakland Unified. Priscilla stands for empowerment and peace for herself and all others and hopes to uplift the innovative and transformative work that is done in the out of school time field while cultivating space for this work to inform daytime school efforts to grow thriving, productive youth leaders with the authentic agency.

Jacqueline Sanchez is currently The Director of Elementary and Middle School Programs at South Asian Youth Action (SAYA) in NYC and an aspiring Executive Director. Prior to her current position she worked in various large nonprofits in the most underserved communities in New York City. Jacqueline feels very passionate about equity advocacy particularly in education. “I have experienced first-hand the devastating impacts of growing up in similar communities and attending schools that failed to prepare me for the next level in school and life.” “I believe awareness regarding racism and inequity is integral to breaking the vicious cycle of economic struggle.” Jacqueline proudly earned her High School Equivalency diploma as an adult. she holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and Psychology form the City University of New York and a Masters in Public Administration from Baruch College.

For the last 14 years Bethany Steinken has run a very small, very rural afterschool program in White Sulphur Springs, MT -- a town without a single stoplight. She started her time at the Stevens Youth Center as an AmeriCorps*VISTA volunteer but fell in love with the work and the community and stayed. She is currently the Director. During 10 of those years she also managed the county 4-H program. 4-H is the largest youth development program nationwide and under her guidance the program in Meagher County doubled in size.

Coming from a biology background meant that Bethany had to seek out the education and tools she needed to do her jobs well. Over the years she attended countless workshops and trainings and became passionate about professional development. It was all those conferences and workshops, and not formal education, that prepared her for work in youth development.

In January, Bethany started channeling that passion when she was hired as the Program Support Coordinator for the Montana Afterschool Alliance. She’s spent her time in that position planning the Afterschool & Beyond statewide professional development conference, which took place in August.

Bethany splits her work between the SYC and MTAA, and her time between White Sulphur and Bozeman, MT with her boyfriend and their furry menagerie.

Brandis Stockman currently serves as a Deputy Director with Promise South Salt Lake in Utah. Her work with youth and families began around 20 years ago when she was attending college in Toronto, Ontario. While she initially thought that residential treatment was her career path, she began working in OST programs and fell in love! Upon graduating from college with a degree in Child and Youth Work, [Canadian] Brandis shocked her friends when she decided to move to Texas, where she worked in the OST field for the next 15 years. She has become known as a strong leader and mentor in the field, and is always striving to increase program quality. On several occasions, her programs were visited by government officials, including a future Presidential candidate. After beginning a new adventure in Utah, Brandis found her home at Promise South Salt Lake, and after her first year she received an award from the Mayor for exemplary work. When she is not working, enjoying Japanese food, or hiking, Brandis also acts as Chair Elect for the Salt Lake Afterschool Regional Network, working towards the further professionalization of the OST field.

Maggie Winiarski is an After School Program Coordinator with the City of New Britain Parks, Recreation & Community Services Department in New Britain, Connecticut. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Central Connecticut State University. She has worked in the out-of-school time field for over 20 years, working with afterschool and municipal summer camp programs in an urban setting with a diverse population. In her role, Maggie designs programs, develops and leads staff, and supports growth in young people across the city in twelve afterschool and five summer program sites. Over the course of her career working in a municipality, she has developed the ability to collaborate and partner with the school district, other community members, and organizations to pull large citywide events together. Maggie is an active member of the Connecticut After School Network's Professional Development and Quality Task Force, as well as an alumni from the statewide CLASP (Coaching and Learning for After School Professionals) program that has over 70 other people from across Connecticut. When Maggie is not working, she enjoys spending her time with her husband, Steve and two kids, Nicholas and Lily. They love to travel, especially to Disney World.