Cross Section of Members Join Palisades High Board

Palisades Charter High School welcomed seven new members to its board at Tuesday night’s meeting.   In last week’s election, Allison Holdorff Polhill and Stephanie Inyama secured the parent and traveling parent seats, respectively. Naomi Norwood and Lisa Kaas Boyle won the community seats. Eleanor Rozell and Monica Iannessa were selected to represent the classified staff and administrators, respectively, while social studies teacher Chris Lee was elected to represent the teachers. Incumbent and special education teacher James Paleno, who also coaches the boys’ basketball team, reclaimed his teacher’s seat.   The newly elected members replace John Riley, Karen Perkins, Patrice Fisher, Carol Osborne, John Callas, Julia O’Grady and Ann Davenport on the 11-member board.   Other board members, whose seats were not up for election, include Susan Frank (parent), Wendy Hagan (teacher) and Jason Cutler (community). The board comprises three community members, three parents, three teachers, one classified staff member and an administrator.   The school’s parents voted for the parent and traveling parent representatives, while teachers, administrators and classified staff voted for their respective seats. A traveling parent resides in the communities represented by PaliHi’s Permit with Transportation, Public School Choice and Magnet programs.   PaliHi employees, students and parents chose one of the community representatives, and the teachers selected the other community representative. Voters had from October 22 to November 10 to cast their ballot. School officials sent ballots to one household for every student attending PaliHi, which has an enrollment of 2,870 students. Households with more than one student received only one ballot. The following are the newly elected board members:   ’ A mother of two PaliHi students, Allison Holdorff Polhill won 125 of the 161 parent votes. The attorney has spent the past 12 years volunteering her time at Palisades schools and currently serves on PaliHi’s Governance Policy and Hiring committees.   ’ Stephanie Inyama, who garnered 106 of the 161 parent votes, has 10 years of experience as a community consultant, working with public and private agencies and foundations to enhance the lives of children and families. Her son is a PaliHi junior.   ’ Running uncontested, Lisa Kaas Boyle, an environmental attorney and co-founder and policy director for the Plastic Pollution Coalition, secured all 1,032 votes from the parents, students and PaliHi personnel. The 20-year Pacific Palisades resident has two children, a 15-year-old daughter who attends Thacher School (a boarding school in Ojai) and a 13-year-old son who attends Brentwood School.   ’ A 1971 PaliHi graduate, Naomi Norwood received 68 of the 163 personnel votes. Norwood worked as a litigation associate at Pepper, Hamilton & Scheetz from 1983-86 and was a partner with Mandel & Norwood from 1986 to 2004. From then until her retirement in 2008, she was an administrator and member of the upper division faculty at Brentwood School.   ’ Eleanor Rozell, who won 56 of the 67 classified staff votes, has worked for PaliHi since 2004 as the financial administrator. Before that, she worked in finance and human resources in the private sector for more than 20 years and at an elementary charter school for nearly two years as the business manager. She serves on PaliHi’s Budget and Finance Committee and founded PESPU, the classified staff’s union at the school.   ’ Chris Lee, who gathered 89 of the 104 teachers’ votes, has worked at PaliHi since September 1999. He earned his bachelor’s degree at UC San Diego in political science, a master’s degree in economics from the London School of Economics and a teaching credential from Loyola Marymount University. Lee coached PaliHi’s Academic Decathlon team for five years, including 2008 when PaliHi won the City Championship for the first time in 18 years.’As a 1990 PaliHi graduate, he is a member of the 50th Anniversary Committee.   ’ Monica Iannessa, who received eight of the 13 administrators’ votes, was the drama teacher at PaliHi for four years before accepting the director of student services position in 2008. She graduated from Long Beach State with a degree in liberal studies and gained her teaching credential at Chapman University in Orange. She later earned her master’s degree in education and administrative credential from UCLA.   ’ Working at PaliHi since 1981, James Paleno has served on the board for four years. A graduate of Cal State Northridge with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in special education, he has coached the basketball team since 1983 and has been head coach since 1991. Paleno picked up 75 of the 104 teachers’ votes. danielle@palipost.com