Robert Aguirre

President/CEO, Catholic Community Foundation

Mr. Aguirre has been a long time education activist for parental choice to better serve the needs of low-income families. In 1998 Aguirre founded the Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options (CREO) based in Washington, DC with a mission to organize Hispanic communities for the cause of fighting for access to equal educational opportunities and to advance education public policy at the state level.

Vernard Gant, D.Min

Director of Urban School Services, Association of Christian Schools International

In this position, Dr. Gant is responsible for overseeing over 300 Christian schools throughout the nation that target and serve minority, under-resourced, and urban children. He is also a member of the Executive Committee of the board for The Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO).

Robert Futrell

Board Member, McKay Scholarship Schools

As a board member of the Coalition of McKay Scholarship Schools, Mr. Futrell creates an awareness of children with special education needs within faith based schools. He is an administrator at Trinity Christian Academy in Jacksonville, Florida where over a hundred students are McKay Scholarship recipients (ESE students) and over 250 students are Step Up for Student Scholarship recipients from low income families.

Charles Glenn, PhD

Professor, Educational Leadership and Development, Boston University

Professor Glenn is a widely published and recognized expert, active in educational policy debates in the United States and Europe, is vice president of OIDEL (the Geneva-based NGO promoting educational freedom worldwide), and a member of the boards of the European Association for Education Law and Policy and the Council for American Private Education, and of five scholarly journals.

Sydney Hay

Executive Director, Arizona CAPE and Southwest Policy Group

Ms. Hay has been a critical and integral part of moving school choice forward in Arizona. She is currently organizing the Arizona branch of the Council on American Private Education and continues to be active in expanding and implementing school choice in the state.

Kathy Jamil

Director, Islamic Schools League of America

Ms. Jamil is a founding member of Universal School in Buffalo, NY and the Chair of ISLA, a national non-profit that works to promote education for Islamic Schools.

Dale McDonald, PBVM, PhD

Director, Public Policy and Educational Research, National Catholic Educational Association

Sister McDonald serves NCEA and its members in policy analysis and advocacy roles regarding the national education policy issues impacting Catholic schools. Prior to joining NCEA, Sr. McDonald was director of the Catholic School Leadership Program in the Boston College Graduate School of Education

Darla Romfo

President and COO, Children’s Scholarship Fund

Ms. Romfo leads the nation’s largest private scholarship program dedicated to providing partial scholarships for low-income children in grades K-8 to go to private school. CSF has provided scholarships to more than 123,000 children since its inception in 1998 and currently serves almost 25,500 children nationwide.

Terry L. Schmidt

Director of Schools, Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod

Mr. Schmidt became Director of Schools in July 2013 after serving as Associate Director since 2003. In that role he assisted schools and congregations to: start schools (Genesis), improve schools (National Lutheran School Accreditation and SSAC) recruit and train new school leaders (SLED). Mr. Schmidt was principal at two Lutheran schools from 1984-2003.

Rabbi David Zwiebel

Executive Vice President, Agudath Israel of America

By profession, Rabbi Zweibel is an attorney, whose areas of professional experience include religious freedom, church-state relations, civil rights, private education and medical ethics. Rabbi Zwiebel is a member of the national board of the Council for American Private Education (CAPE), chairs the Committee of New York City Religious and Independent School Officials, and is a member and former chairman of the New York State Commissioner of Education’s Advisory Council for Nonpublic Schools.