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Park Day’s Board of Trustees is responsible for the governance and stewardship of the school. Board members are fiduciaries who steer the organization towards a sustainable future by adopting sound, ethical, and legal governance and financial management policies, as well as by making sure Park Day has adequate resources to advance its mission.
The Board strives to reflect our diversity community consistent with the stated mission of the school, and is made up of between 17 to 23 trustees. Requests for nominees are solicited from the community and comprise parents, staff, and community members who bring particular expertise and perspective. The Governance Committee of the Board of Trustees selects candidates based on a set of specific criteria and presents a slate to the full Board for election in the spring. Officers of the Board are elected by the full Board each year.
Monthly board meetings are open to the school community. Contact Board Chair, Akeel Williams, with any comments or questions at: akeel.williams@parkdayboard.org.
Aby is parent to a third grader and a kindergartner at Park Day. She was born in Mexico, grew up in San Francisco and, after two stints on the East Coast, finally returned to the Bay Area and settled in Oakland in 2015. Aby is a corporate attorney with a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and a J.D. from Columbia University School of Law. She is a native Spanish speaker and also speaks some French. Aby enjoys running, reading, and creating spreadsheets.
A resident of Oakland for over 20 years, Lin is the proud parent of a current Park student and a Park alumni. As a Partner at Ground Works Consulting, she supports community leaders working at the intersection of power-building and housing justice. She’s also held roles in local government, at policy advocacy and legal services nonprofits in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, and as a transactional attorney representing companies and nonprofits. She received her bachelor’s degree from Harvard and her law degree from UC Berkeley. Lin is a big fan of Park Day’s mission, crispy fried chicken, and podcasts about swindlers.
Bio coming soon.
Erika Evearitt brings a deep passion for education, community, and the arts to her work. Originally from Detroit, Erika’s commitment to equity and creative expression was shaped early on by the city’s rich culture, activism, and resilience. She now serves as Assistant Dean of External Affairs and Development at the UC Berkeley School of Information, where she leads efforts in fundraising, alumni relations, marketing, and communications to support the school’s mission and growth.
With over 15 years of experience across the nonprofit and education sectors, Erika has helped raise more than $100 million to support equity-driven programs and initiatives. She’s held leadership roles at the Silicon Valley Education Foundation, the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, Ecology Center, and AXIS Dance Company always focused on building partnerships, storytelling impact, and strengthening organizations from the inside out.
Erika earned her M.A. in Dance in Higher Education and the Professions from NYU and holds dual bachelor’s degrees in Dance Arts and Sports Management from the University of Michigan. In 2023, she was named Silicon Valley’s Fundraising Professional of the Year by the Association of Fundraising Professionals and currently serves on the board of the USF Gellert Family Business Center.
Now rooted in Oakland, Erika lives in the East Bay with her partner, son, and dog. She’s honored to support Park Day School’s mission of progressive, inclusive education and excited to contribute her experience and heart to a community that values creativity, curiosity, and belonging.
Throughout her life, Leniece navigated spaces as one of the few, first or the only. And at every step of her career, whether in classrooms, across systems or sectors, she’s made it her one defining mission to expand opportunity for the underrepresented, overlooked and underestimated.
Leniece founded Compass Talent, a firm that builds inclusive workplaces for companies with ARR ranging from $2M-$36B to address inequity at work. Additionally, she is a Senior PM at LinkedIn where she manages a portfolio of executive programs for the company’s most senior leaders, globally. Leniece is a trusted mentor for Techstars, alum of BLCK VC, published writer and impact investor. A Bronx-native, raised in a hard working, union card carrying, blue collar household, Leniece holds a BA from the University of Vermont, MS from Bank Street College and MA from Columbia University’s Teachers College.
Most importantly, she is one half of a co-parenting duo raising fiercely curious kiddos who are our greatest teachers.
Andrew is a Park Day dad and an Oakland native who has developed a deep appreciation for the progressive principles and community at PDS. He works in biotech, developing fermentation-based processes to sustainably produce ingredients traditionally extracted from nature or synthesized from petroleum. Andrew holds a PhD in Biochemistry from Harvard Medical School and a BA in Biology from Pomona College. Outside of work, Andrew enjoys family time with his wife Katrina, daughter Gemma and dog Poppy, coaching kids’ soccer, and skiing and rock climbing.
Hal has worked with students in classrooms and beyond them, both as a teacher at King’s Academy in Jordan and as a longtime counselor and archivist with the Aloha Foundation in Fairlee, Vermont. Hal received a B.A. in Religion from Middlebury College and a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School. He is passionate about history education as a collaborative practice that creates the contexts necessary to understand our present moment and fosters the critical skills and imaginative capacity to grow into a different future. When not in the classroom, he loves to do hot yoga, solve crosswords, and support his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers.
Liz is a proud parent of two Park Day School alums, Anne & TJ. She is deeply grateful for the strong foundation and joyful, inclusive education her children received at Park Day. A lifelong educator, Liz earned her Masters in Early Childhood and Elementary Education from Bank Street College in 1992 and found great fulfillment in her work as a teacher, school administrator and mom.
Today, Liz brings that same care and purpose to her work as an agent at New York Life Insurance Company, where she provides protection-first planning. She remains active in her community as a member of the Public Safety Committee and Garden Club in Piedmont. Liz lives in Upper Rockridge with her husband Tom, their dog Rocky, and their two cats Burt and Lily. Liz enjoys playing backgammon and pickleball with her family.
CA Insurance License #4282724
Kathleen has served as Head of School at The Seven Hills School (Preschool–Grade 8, 425 students) in Walnut Creek, CA, since 2015, marking her 38th year in independent education. A lifelong educator from a family of teachers, her career spans five independent schools across the New York Tri-State and San Francisco Bay Areas. Kathleen just completed her term on the CAIS Board and frequently mentors emerging leaders through The Heads Network’s Women in Leadership Seminar. Her leadership focuses on community and culture building, exploring and defining financial sustainability in independent schools, promoting institutional DEIB, and growing good people through a robust experiential education program. Kathleen and her husband have three adult children and a beloved pack of dogs. Outside of school, she enjoys traveling, hiking, knitting, and dog-walking.
Adam was born and raised in Oakland, attended Park Day through 6th grade, and now is a Park School Dad. He currently works as a project manager in the utilities field and has a background in environmental consulting and geographic information systems with extensive experience in the fields of arboriculture and nature resource management.
Chris grew up with her younger brother and sister in San Francisco as the semi-feral children of local electronic folk musician, The Space Lady.
Years later, she graduated from UNLV with an interdisciplinary degree in Cultural Studies. After beginning her career as a teacher and athletic coach in Southern California, she returned to the Bay Area and joined the crew of the USS Hornet Museum. As Senior Director of Visitor Experience, she supported educational programming aboard the historic aircraft carrier best known for its role in the recovery of the Apollo 11 & 12 astronauts after the first manned lunar landing missions.
Finding her home at Park Day School in 2018, Chris discovered the kind of school her parents, themselves children of the counterculture, would have chosen for her. Chris is honored to lead the school’s fundraising efforts with the Annual Fund, plan events such as the Sneaker Ball Gala & Auction, and the beloved Read-a-Thon, oversee ParentSquare communications, and support our devoted parent volunteers.
Chris enjoys playing volleyball, binge watching both lowbrow and high-concept tv, and she inherited an obsession with the music of the golden age of Motown and ’70s Rock & Roll. She lives in Alameda with her husband, Lance. She’s a proud mom of grown children, Skyler and Anika, and a reluctant caretaker of the family’s obnoxious tuxedo cat, Oreo.
Alli’s professional and personal life are as consistent as possible with her strong values of empathy, connection, and service. She really, really likes her two daughters and feels lucky to be a supportive mom to them and partner to their dad. Alli co-created The Lay Counselor Academy, which aims to create a new pathway for folks to become mental health counselors–a pathway that increases equity in the field and access for those who need care. She feels best about life when her efforts make a meaningful impact on others. Alli loves to swim and might get you to join her at Temescal Pool or in the Bay. She coaches Special Olympics swim, girls softball, deeply appreciates people’s uniqueness, and loves quality time with family, friends, and animals.
Jerry Smith is a 20-year Oakland resident and proud parent of twins in Middle School at Park Day. As a retired Internal Medicine physician and laboratory researcher in obesity and developmental biology, he now focuses on parenting, volunteering on campus and philanthropy. Jerry hopes to apply the problem-solving and communication skills from his career to his service on the board. His vision for Park Day and its larger community includes fostering diversity, equity and inclusion, expanding financial aid access for students and promoting volunteerism in Park Day’s dynamic family of parents, neighbors and alumni. Jerry can also be found meditating, boiling in a hot tub, lifting heavy things, woodworking, baking needlessly complicated cakes and annually/excessively haunting his house for charity.
Pola Crawford Stein joins the Park Day School Board of Trustees with a deep commitment to education and community. Born and raised in Oakland, Pola’s personal journey—from a student on scholarship at Head-Royce School to a successful legal career and now a dedicated educator—has shaped a powerful belief in the transformative power of education.
After graduating from Cornell Law School, Pola served as a public defender, advocating for those who could not afford legal representation, and practiced civil litigation, bringing a focus on justice and advocacy to every case. Now, as a third-year English teacher at Oakland Technical High School’s Race, Policy, and Law Academy, Pola applies a passion for social justice to the classroom, where she also teaches a Law & Society course. A devoted-yet-tired mother of two sons, Miles (2nd grade) and Maxwell (preschool), Pola is excited to bring a parent’s perspective, along with her professional experience as an attorney and educator, to the board.