PUC Schools / About / Management Team

Dr. Ron Alatorre joined PUC schools in 2009 and currently serves as principal. He has more than 27 years of experience in education and has served as a dynamic leader in educational institutions throughout California, including three high-performing high schools. Under his leadership, his schools have earned six-year WASC accreditations, California Distinguished School recognitions (3) and were ranked among Newsweek's top 500 high schools.

Dr. Alatorre has been involved with the Association of California School Administrators, Council on Language and Minority Student Affairs, Coalition of Essential Schools, Association of Mexican American Educators, California Association of Directors of Activities, National Association of Secondary School Principals, and the California Association of Bilingual Educators. He has also served on several state-wide committees assisting in the development of assessments for high school students.

Prior to his returning to Southern California, Alatorre served as principal of Mills High School in the San Mateo Union High School District, leading the school to six-year WASC accreditation and top CST scores in the county. Additionally, he has served as director of vocal music, athletic coach, activities director and teacher, and musical and choral director at several high schools throughout California. Dr. Alatorre has served as both an arts and academic educator, teaching courses in fine arts, music and English. Recently he has taught graduate courses in the Masters programs at Cal State University, Long Beach and Argosy University. Since 1992, Dr. Alatorre has served as chairman of many WASC Accreditation Teams and WASC Revisit Committees.

He holds a doctoral degree in education from the University of Southern California; a master's degree in educational administration from California State University, Fullerton; a professional administrative credential from California State University, San Jose; and a bachelor's degree in music from University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Alatorre has continued his professional development through additional studies at Stanford and Harvard.

With a passion for improving the educational opportunities for at-risk students, Ingrid Anderson relocated from Seattle to Los Angeles in 2001 to pursue her dream. Fortuitously, she crossed paths with Dr. Ref Rodriguez and was offered her first teaching position at CALS Charter Middle School in its second year of existence. At CALS, she taught humanities and reading for six years, contributed to the development of the mission of the school, and later witnessed the creation of the PUC organization. In 2007, she became the assistant principal and instructional leader of Community Charter Middle School is now Principal. Education has played an important role in Ingrid's personal and professional development. She holds an undergraduate degree in Elementary Education from Boston University where she played Division 1 softball on an athletic and academic scholarship. Upon returning to the Pacific Northwest, she attended graduate school at Seattle University to receive a degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. Then in 2005, she completed a master's degree in Collaborative Educational Leadership from Fielding University within a cohort of several other PUC colleagues. One major goal for Ingrid is that she wants to continually reflect on best practices to build stronger relationships between the school and its families and help improve the opportunities for her students.

Leslie Chang was born in Nicaragua, and raised in Los Angeles by a Nicaraguan immigrant mother and Chinese father. She is the youngest of three and is a first generation college student in her family. She attended Catholic schools in the Northeast Los Angeles area. After graduating from Sacred Heart of Jesus High School, Leslie attended Mount St. Mary's College where she received her Bachelors in Sociology with certification in Criminology. A year later, Leslie returned to Mount St. Mary's and completed the credentialing program and received a Master of Science in Education. Immediately after receiving her Bachelors, Leslie began teaching at a parochial school, Divine Saviour, in Cypress Park, building her teaching foundation. Four years later, began teaching at CALS Charter Middle School as the 8th grade Humanities and Reading teacher. Soon after, she became the assistant principal, and now, the Principal. Throughout her years of work in Cypress Park, Leslie has developed a strong commitment to the students, parents, and teachers, and hopes to help create future leaders. In her job as principal, she works with parents, assists teachers in teaching, designing curriculum, and most importantly, supports the students' learning. She is happily married, raising her son, and hopes to continue her work in Education by returning to school to receive an Educational Doctorate in the very near future.

Suzanne Edwards-Acton began her teaching career almost two decades ago as a fourth grade teacher in Long Beach, California. She was later inspired by the power of teamwork when she led a collaborative teaching team in re-organizing the upper grade of their school and, over a three year period, brought their students to academic successes that helped bring their school out of program improvement for the first time in several years. It was during this experience that Suzanne became familiar with the power of academic rigor and passionate about inspiring all of her students to strive to go to college. When she realized that this passion was not shared by the leaders of the school where she worked, she sought out to find an organization that understood educating all students well, as a social justice issue. In 2007, Suzanne found that shared vision in PUC Schools and began working as a 7th grade math teacher at Excel Charter Academy. Suzanne holds a Masters degree from the Seminary of the Southwest. She is currently working on her second Masters Degree, in School Administration, as a Fellow in the Charter School Leadership Academy at Loyola Marymount University. She has two sons who hope to one day be PUCsters, too.

Kennedy Hilario, is the Managing Director at the Home Office for PUC Schools and is responsible for driving the organization's business operations, including conceptualizing strategy, implementing operating plans and budgets, and achieving targets through oversight and leadership of the Finance, Human Resources, Operations, Clinical Counseling, New Business Development, and School Support Services departments.

Kennedy graduated from the University of Florida with a Bachelors degree in chemical engineering and got a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard University, and then began his professional career at Fortune 100 company, Exxon Chemical, as a Technical Sales Representative, in Texas and then Chicago, Illinois. Mr. Hilario also worked for Booz Allen Hamilton as a general management consultant in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry and also worked for Monsanto as a Regional Analyst.

Following Monsanto, Mr. Hilario took an opportunity, with his wife, to purchase and take over management of a private school outside of Los Angeles, Lampson Grove Elementary. He's enjoyed growing the school, getting immersed in making a difference in the school's community and providing the children of that community with a quality educational choice.

Recently, Mr. Hilario was the Executive Director of Environmental Charter High School, at a time when the organization was in the midst of a sensitive personnel crisis and was charged with restoring relationships, both within the school and at the board level, taking financial control and making changes in several key positions on the administration. Mr. Hilario created a 10 year strategic plan that calls for a creation of a network of eight charters from K-12, created a fund raising plan, a marketing plan with literature, started a newsletter, renewed the High School Charter, completed and submitted a charter petition for the future middle school in Gardena, established processes and policies, helped build a strong admin and early CMO staff, and has helped ECHS reach an API of 741 from 676 over the past three years. Also, Mr. Hilario moved ECHS to its new home, a district own facility, helping convert it to support its environmental mission by building a library, amphitheater, and a living stream.

While he has been living in the Los Angeles area for the past several years, he continues to pursue his love of learning new things through his educational pursuits. Mr. Hilario recently earned a Bachelors degree in Psychology from Biola University. When he's not busy working in his current position or furthering his education, he enjoys spending time with his wife, Alexandra, and children, Kenny, 4 ½ and Viviana, 3.

James Pasto was born in upstate New York to a family of educators. After graduating from Syracuse University with a B.A. in history and education, he began his educational career as a substitute and teachers aid. He enrolled at SUNY Cortland where he received a master's degree in secondary education. His first full time teaching experience came in Boca Raton, Florida where he taught 6th, 7th and 8th grade social studies. While there he also coached football, basketball and baseball. A new job opportunity for his wife brought him out to California, where he has fallen in love with charter schools and the charter school movement. For the past two years he has worked at charter schools in eastern and southern Los Angeles as a social studies teacher. He is currently a Fellow in the Charter School Leadership Academy and Loyola Marymount University completing coursework for a certificate in Charter School Leadership. He plans to continue his education by completing an Educational Doctorate in the near future. He is very honored to be following in the footsteps of his grandfathers as a school administrator. He is a happily married man, to his wonderful wife Lindsay.

Manuel Ponce was born in Panorama City and raised in Sylmar by his parents, both of whom are educators. His upbringing instilled in him the importance of education as a mechanism for change and equality for all people. At an early age Manuel began working with youth in the community by volunteering at the local recreation center as an athletic coach. Upon graduating from Bishop Alemany High School in Mission Hills, he began working in education as a teacher's assistant and was named the aquatics administrator for Alemany High School's Water Polo and Swim teams. Manuel joined PUC as a science teacher at Lakeview, after teaching for six years at a small, private elementary school in San Fernando. Manuel received an Associate of Arts Degree in Liberal Arts from Los Angeles Mission College and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Liberal Studies from California State University, Northridge. He has completed graduate coursework at National University where he is receiving a Master of Arts in Cross-Cultural Education. He is currently a Fellow in the Charter School Leadership Academy at Loyola Marymount University completing coursework for a Master of Arts in Educational Leadership with a certificate in Charter School Leadership and Special Education Administration. He plans to continue his education by completing an Educational Doctorate in the near future. He is happily married and the proud father of a beautiful son with another son on the way.

Connie Rivas received a Bachelor or Arts degree in history from California State University, Northridge and later received a Master of Science in Special Education from National University. She entered the classroom as a paraprofessional working with disabled students. Through this experience she worked closely with students, parents, teachers and administrators to create optimal learning environments for all students. Her experience as a special educator allowed her to gain a solid understanding of student dynamics, school culture, instruction, and the importance of parent engagement. After several years of working in a traditional public school she was introduced to the charter school movement, which greatly appealed to her teaching philosophy and her deep rooted commitment to uplifting students, families, and communities through education. Her charter school experience began in Pacoima where she served as a lead teacher and special education coordinator. Connie is currently fulfilling a life-long dream of serving students from North East Los Angeles as the principal of CALS Early College High School and is a testament to her students that hard work, commitment, and passion make dreams come true.

Sascha Robinett is the founding principal of Milagro Charter School, providing students with both a bilingual and arts integrated education. Prior to starting the school she worked for a national arts-integrated school reform initiative, Different Ways of Knowing, designing and facilitating professional development workshops and creating school programs in arts integration, literacy, teacher leadership, standards-based instruction, and data-driven decision making and receiving intense training from professional artists and arts educators in visual arts, drama, dance, and music. During her classroom teaching experience - in grades three through twelve - she worked with the Amory Center for the Arts in Pasadena to create and implement an arts-integrated sixth grade curriculum program and wrote a school-wide grant (Arts In The Schools) to bring music education from kindergarten through sixth grade to her school. She holds both a clear multiple subject/CLAD credential and a preliminary administration credential. She received her B.A. in Sociology from University of California, Santa Barbara and her M.A. in Educational Leadership from California State University, Los Angeles.

Jacqueline Duvivier Castillo recently joined PUC Schools as the Director of Business and Development Services and will be working closely with its CEO and the team to build an efficient and effective delivery of operational services to its own network of schools and others externally as well. Formally the Director of Educational Partnerships at the National Council of La Raza's Los Angeles, California office, she coordinated all regional education endeavors including the Charter School Development Initiative (CSDI), the Early College Project (ECP), and training and technical assistance for schools, affiliates, and nonprofit organizations in California that work with NCLR. She has an extensive background studying and working in education and administration in North, Central, and South America. She has taught over 10 years in preschool, elementary, and middle school both in and outside of the U.S., and has served in administrative leadership posts both in and out of the education field. As a graduate of Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, Jacqueline holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Latin American Economics and Spanish Language as well as a Master of Science in Educational Administration and Curriculum Development from the College of New Rochelle in New York. She is the daughter of immigrants and is happily married with twin daughters who attend a PUC school.

Dr. Elliot has been dedicated to public school reform since 1986 when she first became a teacher in Pacoima, California. She holds a B.A. in Anthropology, a Multiple Subjects Teaching Credential, an Administrative Credential, a Master's degree in Educational Administration and a doctorate in Educational Leadership and Change. As a former LAUSD employee, Jacqueline Elliot was driven by an intense desire to improve the state of public education. She first became acquainted with the charter school movement in 1994 while serving as a teacher leader at Montague Elementary when she co-authored the school's petition that converted Montague to charter status. Dedicated to creating high quality charter schools for the students in Pacoima, she founded Community Charter Middle School (CCMS) in 1999. The school was the first charter middle school to serve students in Los Angeles and was so successful and well received by the community, that Dr. Elliot subsequently founded three more schools to serve the same geographic area. Dr. Elliot began collaborating with Dr. Ref Rodriguez in 1998. Together they have collaborated and supported each other's efforts while co-founding and operating Partnerships to Uplift Communities (PUC) which now has a total of 12 schools. In addition to serving as CEO of PUC, Dr. Elliot currently serves as an elected representative to the California Charter Schools Association Membership Council and also serves on the Association's 501C4 board. In addition, she serves on the board of the Multicultural Learning Center, a charter school in Canoga Park, California. Dr. Elliot is also an adjunct professor in the Education Department at Loyola Marymount University.

Kelly Montes De Oca brings a wealth of academic and curriculum development experience to PUC. Prior to joining the PUC team, Kelly worked as an instructional coach and curriculum designer with the Galef Institute in Los Angeles. Her work there included designing and implementing an ongoing school reform program for elementary and middle schools based on The Galef Institute model. This work included designing and delivering professional development workshops, mentoring teachers, modeling lessons, and tracking the progress of school improvement. Kelly received her BA in General Studies of Education as well as California Preliminary Credential from the School of Education at the University of Southern California. She got her MA in Educational Technology as well as California Clear Credential from the Graduate School of Education at Azusa Pacifica University. She leads a team of professionals at PUC that collaboratively develop and deliver professional development to school leaders, teachers and all staff in the network.

Prior to his experience as a middle school principal, Nik Orlando has had extensive experience connecting the art community to the school community with city murals created by students at a Garden Park, as well as city art shows with student work included at Long Beach Art Walks and various performances. His experience also includes personal community based art experiences with stage and installation work with TEEN Magazine Cover, Long Beach City Halloween Event, California State University, Long Beach and the Festival of the Five Senses, The Perfect Circus, sponsoring foster children with musical instruments and grass roots community art collectives creating art/performance shows for the city. His teaching experience includes history, English, and journalism instruction for grades six through eight at CALS Charter Middle School, as well as history, English, and art instruction for grades six through eight at Constellation Community Middle School in Long Beach. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Art and Multiple Subject CLAD Clear Teaching Credential from California State University, Long Beach and a Master of Arts in Collaborative Educational Leadership from Fielding Graduate University.

Malena Orozco-Otero is the Director of Human Resources for PUC Schools and is responsible for assuring that the network is compliant with Federal and State labor laws, for the staff and faculty recruiting process, for development and implementation of new programs, and employee retention. Prior to joining PUC Schools, Malena worked for several divisions of the Walt Disney Company in the Human Resources department. The industries ranged from gaming, toy design and retail. During the last ten months of her tenure Malena worked with the Disney Stores as they were acquired by The Children's Place, Inc. In that capacity she was the Human Resources Manager for 350 stores in 18 states. Her experience includes recruiting human resources generalist for various companies such Olsten Staffing Service and McKesson Water Products (Sparkletts). Malena has a BA degree in Spanish from California State University Los Angeles and completed several certificate programs in the Human Resources field.

Prior to joining Partners, Ref was Co-Chief Executive Officer of Partnerships to Uplift Communities (PUC), a charter school management organization serving communities in the Northeast San Fernando Valley and Northeast Los Angeles. During his tenure, PUC developed 10 schools and became a well regarded charter management organization in California. Ref's original inspiration for starting a charter school was to offer high quality learning experiences for youth in the predominantly Latino working class community where he grew up. His outrage for being considered "fortunate" for having graduated from college because of his socio-economic background is what drives him to create and support schools where college graduation is an expectation for all. Before joining the charter schools movement, Ref worked in the business sector and as a teacher and administrator in Catholic parochial schools. He is the first of five children of Mexican immigrants to graduate from college.

Christine Sartiaguda is co-founder of the Clinical Counseling Program at PUC Schools. This program serves as a clinical training site for graduate students obtaining a degree in clinical counseling, marital and family therapy, art therapy and/or school counseling. The Clinical Counseling Program provides full mental health services to all PUC students and families. Christine is a Licensed Marital and Family Therapist and Registered Art Therapist who clinically supervises Marital and Family Therapy Trainees/Interns as well as Art Therapy Interns. She brings over 12 years of clinical experience, having obtained a B.A. in Psychology, followed by her M.A. in Marital and Family Therapy specializing in Art Therapy, both degrees from Loyola Marymount University. Prior to coming to PUC, Christine was Director of Training, Program Director of a Day Program, Senior Therapist and Group Home Therapist at G.L.A.S.S. In addition to having worked in residential care, Christine has worked at hospitals, out-patient clinics, schools and has been a guest speaker at various clinical conferences. Christine has also been a part of academia while being invited to speak at Loyola Marymount University and CSUN as well as being an associate professor at Phillips Graduate Institute. As Director of Clinical Services, Christine oversees the Clinical Counseling Program and all other clinical services within PUC as well as provides individual and group supervision to the clinical counseling trainees/interns.

Edward Vandenberg was the founding principal of Lakeview Charter Academy and has been with PUC Schools since 2001. Prior to his work in education, he earned his MFA in Painting from the University of Pennsylvania and a BFA in Painting from the University of the Arts. Edward also attended and excelled in the arts at the prestigious Central High School in Philadelphia, PA. Upon his graduation from the University of Pennsylvania he embarked on a career as a muralist and traveled the world designing, creating, and managing large private projects. Seeking a return to education he began to teach art part time at Community Charter Middle School. Due to his dedication to students, commitment to learning, and rich life experience, in a very short period of time Edward ascended to the role of principal. After graduating the first class of students from Lakeview Edward took on the challenge of coaching the leaders in the PUC Valley Schools. During the past seven years he has had the pleasure of working with and learning from top notch educators, charter school developers, committed parents and most importantly, the wonderful PUC students.