The PAVE Family

Chair

Margie Yeager

Margie Yeager is a Partner at Education Forward DC leading their Advocacy portfolio. In this role, she helps direct philanthropic resources to create enabling conditions to advance quality and equity in public schools. Most recently, she was the Director of Advocacy and Policy at Chiefs for Change, a bipartisan coalition of state and district members. Prior to this, Margie was the Chief of Staff to the DC Deputy Mayor for Education where she supported education policy in DC from birth to career including early childhood centers, DC public and charter schools, and higher education. Margie began her career as a second-grade teacher at Simon Elementary in DCPS with Teach for America.

She received her BA from Tufts University summa cum laude and her MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School with thesis honors. Margie lives in DC with her husband and three young sons. Her oldest two sons are in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten in DCPS at Key Elementary.

Vice Chair

Kemba Hendrix

Kemba Hendrix is the Senior Advisor to the Executive Secretary at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She has dedicated her career to conflict resolution, educating others, conducting training on creating inclusive environment. A lawyer by training, Kemba worked at Office Personnel Management as Adviser to the Deputy Associate Director of Senior Executive Service and Performance Management, providing advice concerning interpretation of law and policy for the office. Further, she developed and facilitated training modules on EEO Laws, Diversity and Inclusion, Bullying and Harassment and conflict resolution. Kemba also advised the Chief Diversity Officer at the Department of State.

Previously Mrs. Hendrix was a lawyer in at firm in Calverton Maryland and was a law clerk in Prince Georges County Circuit Court. Kemba is also an alum of Teach for America and spent years teaching fourth and sixth graders at Fairfax County Elementary School. She holds a Bachelor degree from Xavier University of Louisiana, and a Juris Doctorate from the Howard University School of Law.

Secretary

Nathaniel Beers

Lynn C. Jennings

Lynn C.  Jennings, Ph.D. is a passionate advocate for students and has demonstrated this in her ten years at the Education Trust (Ed Trust), a national non-profit organization dedicated to closing opportunity gaps by expanding excellence and equity in education for students of color and those from low-income families from early childhood through college.  She has held several positions including senior legislative associate, field director, and now she is the senior director for national and state partnerships.  In her current position, Lynn works in close partnership with Ed Trust’s policy and communication teams to ensure the organization’s work in states is informed by research and evidence and communicated effectively.  She built a model for advocacy training that continues to garner close to 400 people a year who attend Ed Trust “bootcamps” to gain policy and advocacy skills.

Prior to working at Ed Trust, Lynn worked for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF), where she directed all CBCF educational programs, which include professional fellowships in congressional offices and on committees, college internships on Capitol Hill, and scholarship programs.  Alumni from these programs became chiefs of staff for congressmembers, executive directors of nonprofit organizations and schools, state education chiefs, and one is now a Member of Congress.

Lynn began her career teaching college.  She received a B.A. in English from Spelman College and her Ph.D. in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her areas of specialization were 19th century American literature, including African American literature, and Women’s Studies.

She taught at Trinity Washington University (DC), Spelman College, Columbia College in Chicago, and University of Wisconsin-Madison. She saw how students were unequally prepared for college because of no fault of their own.  From these experiences, she decided to be an advocate for students.

Lynn lives in Washington, DC with her husband and two elementary-school age sons.  She currently serves on the board of trustees for a DC public charter school and she is a member of the Ward 5 Education Equity Executive Committee.  She is the former president of the John Burroughs Elementary School Parents and Teachers Organization (PTO).

Michael Yudin

Michael K. Yudin brings the expertise of a career spent advocating for equitable opportunities for educationally disadvantaged children and youth to his role as Principal at The Raben Group. Prior to joining the firm, Michael worked on behalf of the Obama Administration at the U.S. Department of Education for six years, serving the Secretary in a number of capacities, including Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, and Acting Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education.

In his capacity as Assistant Secretary, Michael led the Department’s efforts to effectively administer twenty-two federal disability grant programs, totaling approximately $15 billion, designed to improve the educational and employment outcomes of infants, toddlers, children, youth, and adults with disabilities. Working with the Secretary and other senior leaders across the Department of Education, Members of Congress, the White House, and other federal agencies, he helped guide the formulation, development, and implementation of policy designed to ensure equal opportunity and access to, and excellence in, education and employment for individuals with disabilities.

In particular, Michael worked to ensure students with disabilities were held to the highest standards and expectations, improve postsecondary education and employment opportunities, and address issues of racial and ethnic disparities in special education. He also helped the Department with implementation of the newly reauthorized ESEA. Michael also took a leadership role in the Department’s efforts to Rethink Discipline, promoting alternatives to exclusionary discipline policies that disproportionately exclude students of color and students with disabilities from the classroom.

Additionally, Michael served on a number of interagency boards and committees, including as a member of the Early Childhood Interagency Policy Board, co-chair of the Federal Partners in Transition, and as chair of the U.S. Access Board. As Acting Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education, he oversaw a number of the Secretary’s critical priorities, including ESEA flexibility and initiatives to turn around low- performing schools and improve teacher and leader effectiveness.

Prior to joining the Department, Michael served nine years as a U.S. Senate staffer, serving as the legislative director for Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, senior counsel to Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, and HELP Committee counsel to Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont.

Working for senior members of the HELP Committee, Michael helped draft, negotiate, and pass various pieces of legislation, including the No Child Left Behind Act, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act 2004, the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008, the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006, and reauthorization of the Head Start Act.
Before joining the Senate, Michael served as an attorney at the Social Security Administration and at the U.S. Department of Labor for nearly 10 years.

Raymond Weeden

Raymond is in his sixth year serving as the Executive Director of Thurgood Marshall Academy PCHS. He has over a decade of experience in the Washington, D.C., education, leadership, and policy sectors. For seven years, he taught math for Columbus Public School and The SEED Public Charter School. \

At SEED PCS, he became a New Leader’s Resident Principal. Raymond first served as Principal of Chavez Parkside Middle School for four years.Then, he served as the Principal of DC Prep’s Benning Elementary Campus, a top-performing, multi-site charter school in Washington, DC. While at DC Prep, Raymond transitioned to their home office to serve as the Senior Director of Policy and Community Engagement, he successfully organized the school’s stakeholders while advocating for quality public education and student safety.

He serves on the boards of the DC Special Education Co-op, Statesmen College Preparatory Academy for Boys PCS, and the School Leader Lab.

Raymond earned both his BA in Sociology and Master of Teaching from the University of Virginia. He also holds an MS in Education Administration from Trinity University

Jolene Hall Sloter

Jolene brings a wealth of experience in policy and philanthropic leadership. After receiving her MBA, she worked for Corning Glass Works in strategic planning and later transitioned to the Federal Government where she gained valuable policy experience working for an independent commission charged with making recommendations to Congress about Medicare.

Jolene and her husband established the Stanley and Jolene Sloter Family Foundation to focus their philanthropy on education, specifically the need for better education opportunities in underserved communities. She is applying her policy experience to analyzing this issue and identifying concepts and organizations that improve the quality of education in low-income communities in DC so they can invest their philanthropic contributions in organizations that produce measurable results.

Jolene has also served as the founding board chair of Rocketship DC and on the board of the Teach forAmerica DC Region. Today, she is a member of the Trustee Council for Communities in Schools ofNorthern Virginia, as well as the Investment Committee for Education Forward DC and on the national board of Rocketship. A longtime supporter of Rocketship Public Schools, she coordinated the groundbreaking for Rocketship’s first school in DC, which opened in August 2016, and has been instrumental in building the Rocketship DC board of directors and finding new sources of support.

She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Biology/Medical Technology from Lycoming College and a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Pittsburgh.