Our Story
For over three decades, our leadership has implemented educational practices resulting in sustainable growth on the leading indicators of youth wellness.
Glenda Macatangay is a social justice entrepreneur that utilizes art, creativity, and innovation to operationalize core values and philosophies of equity in building community-responsive sustainable businesses. She is the Chief Operations Officer of Community Responsive Education and the Managing Partner of UpperCloud, a media agency for social impact in Oakland, Ca. She holds a Masters in Social Work degree from California State University at Sacramento and a Bachelors in Sociology and Women’s Studies from the University of California at Davis. She was a practicing clinician and clinical director in various environments of private practice, non-profit and community-based organizations, schools and the juvenile justice systems for over 19 years and has continued to serve her community in support of mental health and wellness through public art, film and radical healing experiences. She has been a community organizer for over 25 years. Organizing is the cornerstone of how she positions all her work in business, art, and radical healing.
Co-Founder, Executive Director
Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, Ph.D., is a Professor in the College of Ethnic Studies and Educational Leadership at San Francisco State University. She has published five books and a wide array of articles and book chapters that focus on the development of ethnic studies curriculum and community responsive pedagogy. Professor Tintiangco Cubales has won many awards including being named one of the 100 most influential Filipinas in the world. In 2014, she was also given the Community Advocacy Award from the Critical Educators for Social Justice group from the American Educational Research Association.
Her experiences as a high school teacher in Seattle during desegregation of the 1970s prompted her interest in urban youth and multicultural education, and the beginnings of her awareness of social injustices.
Co-Founder, Executive Director
Tiffani Marie is the daughter of Sheryll Marie, granddaughter of Dorothy Wilson and Annette Williams, and the great-granddaughter of Artelia Green and Olivia Williams. She comes from a long line of Arkansas educators. She is passionate about learning with and from youth, building with sacred and beloved community, sewing, music production, and connecting to the natural world.
Research Lead
Sharim Hannegan-Martinez is a daughter, sister, prima, homegirl, educator, organizer, and lover of young adult fiction and boxing. Her research is informed by her experiences growing up on the San Diego-Tijuana frontera and her time as a high school English teacher in East Oakland, and examines the relationship between trauma, loving pedagogies, literacy, and student wellness, particularly as it relates to Students of Color. Her most recent study explores the pedagogy of loving relationships— cultivated in part by the literacy practices employed by teachers — as an intervention to traumatic stressors within the context of urban classrooms. Her work has been published in several journals including Teachers College Record, Urban Education, and Urban Review. She is a founding member of the People’s Education Movement, Bay Area, and currently works as an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky. She earned her Ph.D from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where her dissertation was recognized by the Ford Foundation’s predoctoral and dissertation year fellowships, and was awarded ‘dissertation of the year’ by American Educational Research Associations’ Division G: Social Contexts in Education.
Research Lead