Mill Falls School Board
Mill Falls Charter School: Board of Trustees
Meryl Levin, Chair (Founding Member), is a social documentary photographer with a focus on health, social welfare and political engagement whose work has been exhibited and published worldwide. She is the author of two monographs (Anatomy of Anatomy and Primarily New Hampshire), editor of several publications, and curator of several group exhibitions. She has guest lectured at colleges and universities around the country, and has received several grants and fellowships in support of her work. She attended Trinity College in Hartford, CT, and completed her undergraduate degree, at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She taught at The School of Visual Arts in NYC for seven years, until moving to NH where she is an adjunct professor at Southern New Hampshire University and is deeply involved in the Service Learning Initiative there. She served on the Board of Directors of the Animal Rescue League in Bedford, NH for three years. Meryl lives in Manchester, NH with her husband, Will Kanteres, and their son, a first grader at Mill Falls. She was inspired to pursue the creation of NH’s first public Montessori by the work of the teaching team at the Bedford Montessori School.
Bryan Bouchard, Treasurer, has worked full time at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester New Hampshire since 2004. He serves as the Business Tutoring Coordinator in the Learning Center where he oversees a group of 25+ student tutors who provide academic support for the School of Business. He also teaches various accounting and finance classes at SNHU at both the graduate and undergraduate level. In 2010 he was awarded the Excellence in Teaching award and in 2012 won the Advisor of the Year award. He is a member of the Union Leader’s 40 under Forty Class of 2012 where he was recognized for his work with nonprofits in the community. Bryan is a huge proponent of service learning and incorporates it into his classes at SNHU. His students assist various local nonprofits with their accounting and finance needs. It is through this work that he won the Campus Compact for New Hampshire Presidents’ Award in 2011. For two years, Bryan served on the board of the Women for Women Coalition in Manchester which is a 501C3 nonprofit that has a mission to support, promote, encourage, and educate African Refugee and immigrant women and children living in New Hampshire. As treasurer, Bryan served as the financial officer of this nonprofit dealing with budgets, grants, and other financial matters. In addition, Bryan is a real estate investor who owns and manages numerous rental properties in southern New Hampshire. He received his undergraduate finance degree from Southern New Hampshire University as well as both a Masters in Business Administration and Masters in Finance. Bryan lives in Manchester, NH.
Kate Callahan, Secretary (Founding Member), is currently the principal at Mary C. Dondero School, a K-5 elementary school in Portsmouth, NH and was formerly the Educational Program Director at Hill View Montessori Charter Public School in Haverhill, Massachusetts. She grew up in Londonderry, New Hampshire and holds a Bachelor’s of Science from University of New Hampshire, a Master’s of Education from Endicott College and a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies from Plymouth State University. Additionally, Kate has her Early Childhood, Lower and Upper Elementary Montessori Certification. She has taught students in grades 3-6 NH and MA, and in a mixed age classroom at the American School of Milan, in Italy. Kate is also employed by Seacoast Center for Education: Montessori Elementary Teacher Education Program where she teaches classes and supervises yearlong teacher practicums. Additionally, she is the Montessori Masters of Education liaison between Seacoast Center and Plymouth State University. Kate and her husband live in Portsmouth, New Hampshire where she is actively involved in her community — as a Trustee at the Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Greater Seacoast and at the Child Advocacy Center of Rockingham County.
Jonnie Lyn Evans was the Data & Development Director at Hill View Montessori Charter Public School in Haverhill, Massachusetts from January 2007 – 2012. Her work there included data analysis, network administration, marketing and PR and compliance work. Jonnie Lyn volunteers with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to support the charter school accountability process. She has served as prospectus and application reviewer as well as part of a site visit team. She has a research and strategic analysis background that began in the for-profit sector where she worked as a research analyst in the consumer information industry. She has also worked as a project manager/consultant in the areas of new business, strategic planning, and competitive analysis. Following her corporate sector experiences, she left the for-profit world to co-found River Valley Charter School in Newburyport, the first Montessori charter public school in Massachusetts which her three children attended through eighth grade. For the last ten years she has worked with traditional and charter schools in the areas of strategic planning, school accountability, student assessment, governance, development, grant writing, project management and dissemination of best practices. She has co-taught in private and public elementary Montessori classrooms and served as a charter school trustee. She received her undergraduate management degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and her Masters in Business Administration from Northeastern University. Her deep and ongoing commitment to public Montessori education has brought her to Mill Falls. Jonnie Lyn lives in Newburyport, MA where she raised her three children who attribute their love of learning to their Montessori beginnings.
Alicia Harressey (Founding Member) is currently an at-home mom raising her two children. She grew up in Derry, NH, attended Saint Anslem College in Goffstown and graduated from Regis College in Weston, MA. Alicia taught first grade in Lawrence, MA for ten years, and was nominated for the Sallie Mae New Teacher of the Year Award. During her time in Lawrence, she was a member of a Special Education referral team, administered and scored the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy skills assessment, and was a peer tutor for new teachers. Alicia was also involved in the search for a new math curriculum for the district. She was introduced to the Montessori method when she was an assistant teacher at the Merrimack Valley Montessori School. For the last 3 years, she has been performing evaluations for home-schooled students. Alicia lives in Hooksett with her husband Shawn and their daughter, a first grader at Mill Falls, and their young son.
Dr. Trinidad Tellez (Founding Member) is the Director of the Office of Minority Health & Refugee Affairs at the NH Department of Health and Human Services where she is responsible for ensuring access to services for racial, ethnic, and linguistic minorities. Previously, she spent more than seven years working in Lawrence, MA as a community-based family physician/researcher at the Greater Lawrence Family Health Center, and as Assistant Professor of Family Medicine and Community Health at the UMass Medical School. While in Lawrence, she helped lead CDC-funded efforts to address health disparities in Latino communities throughout New England. Originally from California, Trini graduated from Harvard-Radcliffe College, received her medical degree from Dartmouth Medical School, trained at the Salinas-UCSF Family Medicine Residency Program, and then completed a two-year Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Fellowship in health services, research and health policy at UCLA. Currently, Trini is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Community and Family Medicine at Dartmouth. She lives in Manchester, NH with her husband, Dr. Travis Harker and their daughter, a second grader at Mill Falls.
Sally Ward is a sociologist who has been on the faculty at the University of New Hampshire for over 30 years. She recently served for two years as the interim Dean at UNH Manchester. She teaches courses in urban sociology, poverty and inequality, communities, and social policy. Her research focuses on poverty and opportunity, vulnerable families and children, and community development in small and midsized cities in New England. She has a particular interest in the role of education in creating a pathway to upward social mobility, especially in diverse urban communities. As a faculty fellow at the Carsey Institute at UNH, she has worked with several nonprofit organizations throughout New Hampshire in evaluating the impact and effectiveness of their programs. Sally received her B.A. degree from the University of Maryland, and her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Brown University. She has two grown children who got their start at the Montessori school in Exeter. She and her husband, Malcolm Wesselink, live in Exeter.
Mill Falls Charter School Founders
Note: The list of Founders includes those noted above in the School Board Trustees list as well as the following individuals:
Elise D. Annunziata (served on the MFCS Board of Trustees from April 2011 – May 2012)
Claudia Barrett
Christina D’Allesandro (served as Vice Chair on the MFCS Board of Trustees from March 2011 – July 2012)
Therese ‘Terri’ Giovagnoli
Teresa ‘Terrie’ Harris
Jessica Wachsman (served as Treasurer on the MFCS Board of Trustees from March 2011 – December 2012)
Dianne Martin (served on the MFCS Board of Trustees from March – October 2011)
Liz Purnell
Shannon Sullivan
