Our Team

Janice Chu-Zhu
Senior Director of National Capacity Building
Janice Chu-Zhu has been on staff at the Center since 2001. As Senior Director of National Capacity Building, she works with clients interested in adapting and developing community schools in their own communities. Her responsibilities include training, development and consultation on a variety of topics such as partnerships, program quality, parent involvement, organizational capacity, funding and sustainability. Janice’s work is documented in her chapter in Community Schools in Action: Lessons from a Decade of Practice. Before joining the Center, she worked in the National Office of the Girl Scouts of the USA, initially as a Pluralism Strategies Consultant for their 319 affiliates and later as the Quality Recognition Manager, overseeing the annual award for best practices. As a licensed social worker, Janice has worked in foster care and the Family Court PINS Program. She also worked as a private consultant for corporations on issues of managing diversity. Janice holds a master's degree in Social Work from Fordham University’s Graduate School of Social Service and a Bachelor of Arts in Social Psychology from the State University of New York at Binghamton.

Katherine Eckstein
Director of Public Policy
Katherine Eckstein holds primary responsibility for developing, coordinating and implementing the Children’s Aid Society’s public policy agenda and advocacy strategy at the local, state and national levels. Key areas include education, health, child welfare, youth development, juvenile justice and anti-poverty initiatives. Katherine’s expertise is in education, community schools and youth development. Before becoming Director of Public Policy, she was the Advocacy & Policy Specialist for the Center, advocating for an increase in the number of effective, long-term partnerships between public schools and other community resources. Prior to joining Children’s Aid, Katherine served as Special Assistant to the Regional Superintendent in charge of three New York City school districts , comprised of 139 schools (PreK-12 continuum) and approximately 100,000 children in the East and South Bronx. Before working at the NYC Department of Education, Katherine was Director of Adult and Family Programs and Interim Executive Director at Playing2Win, the nation’s first community technology center. Katherine has her B.A. in Public Policy from Brown University and her M.A. in Elementary Education from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Abelardo (Abe) Fernández
Deputy Director
Abe Fernández brings over a dozen years of experience in education, community development and non-profit management to the Center. Since he joined the team in 2003, he has provided on- and off-site coaching, training and consultation to several community school initiatives across the country and beyond (including Hartford, CT; Lehigh Valley, PA; Kent County, MI; Salt Lake City, UT; and Surrey, Canada). Abe has designed and presented trainings at local and national conferences on topics such as parent engagement, systemic initiatives, effective supervision and school-community partnership; and is responsible for managing the operations of the Center. He was formerly an Assistant Director of the CAS Community Schools department, supervising community schools in the South Bronx – including two start-up schools – and an Administrative Supervisor and consultant to the department. Prior to joining Children’s Aid, he served as the Director of Youth Services and ran the multi-service Washington Houses Community Center at Union Settlement Association in East Harlem. Abe started his career as a teacher of middle school mathematics and Director of the Summerbridge/Breakthrough program in the Bronx. He is a graduate of Brown University and the Institute for Not for Profit Management at Columbia University.

Sarah Jonas
Director of Regional Initiatives
Sarah Jonas joined the Children’s Aid Society in 1998 as a community school director. She was promoted to Education Coordinator for Community Schools in 1999, Director of Education Services for Community Schools and City and Country Divisions in 2004, and Consultant for the National Center for Community Schools in 2009. Sarah is a certified teacher who taught for seven years in public elementary schools in Los Angeles (as a charter member of Teach for America) and New York City. She is a curriculum writer, staff developer and trainer who has presented workshops for teachers and after school professionals at national conferences including Boys & Girls Clubs of America and the National Afterschool Association, as well as for organizations such as The After-School Corporation, the Partnership for After School Education and the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving. She received her bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Yale University and her Ed.M. in Administration, Planning and Social Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Hersilia Méndez
Director of External Affairs & Communications
Hersilia Méndez joined The Children's Aid Society as the multimedia art consultant and instructor for the elementary and middle flagship schools in 1993. Her formal training is in visual arts and communications; however, her work in the schools and a lifelong commitment to community organizing led her to develop an expertise in the complexities of fostering partnerships in school settings and in the art of involving parents and community in the schools. In 1995 she was invited to join CAS’ National Center for Community Schools as the assistant director. In that capacity, she helps manage the Center’s operations and actively contributes to local, national and international efforts to build capacity of public schools and community-based organizations to work in long-term partnerships that improve opportunities for children and families; helps define strategies for marketing and training; designs and moderates study visits for national and international policy makers, funders, universities, educators, parents and CBOs –an average of 600 a year; and manages the Center’s international portfolio. She is a published writer and holds one Master’s degree in communications and one in fine arts.

Jane Quinn
Director
Jane Quinn is a social worker and youth worker with nearly four decades of experience, including direct service with children and families, program development, fundraising, grantmaking, research and advocacy. She currently serves as the Assistant Executive Director for Community Schools at The Children’s Aid Society (CAS) in New York City, where she directs the National Center for Community Schools and contributes strategic planning and sustainability expertise to The Children’s Aid Society’s local community schools initiative in New York City. Jane came to CAS from the Wallace-Reader’s Digest Funds, where she served as Program Director for seven years. Prior to that, she directed a national study of community-based youth organizations for the Carnegie Corporation of New York, which resulted in the publication of a book entitled A Matter of Time: Risk and Opportunity in the Nonschool Hours. Together with Joy Dryfoos, Jane co-edited a book entitled Community Schools in Action: Lessons from a Decade of Practice. In addition, she writes a regular column on youth development practice issues for Youth Today. Jane has a Master’s in social work from the University of Chicago.

Out Based Consultants

Kimberly DeSimone
Kim DeSimone comes to the National Center for Community Schools with nearly a decade of experience planning, implementing and supervising community schools. She graduated with a Master’s in Social Work from Syracuse University and joined the Children’s Aid Society team in 2001 as social worker at the Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics in East Harlem, CAS’s first high school partnership. Within a year, she was promoted to Community School Director and worked closely with schools personnel to develop and integrate age-appropriate programs and services. In 2004, she relocated to Hartford, CT to work for the Village for Families and Children, where she oversaw 12 school-based sites that included a model Truancy Court Prevention Project, six Family Resource Centers and several after-school programs. She also helped launch the Community School initiative in Hartford, supervising one of the five inaugural school sites. Kim now lives in San Francisco, CA with her family and, as a consultant with the Center, will be assisting several schools and agencies in California as they implement the community school model.

Dorothy J. Knauer
Dorothy Knauer recently retired from Community Agencies Corporation of New Jersey after 30 years of service, including the last five as Executive Director. During her tenure more than 15,000 volunteers and 24,000 Newark youths and families have been involved in one or more programs under her leadership. Dorothy has developed, implemented, and helped to sustain several model programs including the largest and oldest one-to-one volunteer tutorial and mentoring program in the state of New Jersey and the innovative “one stop” Community Partners for Youth. During her tenure at CACNJ, she also served as co-director of the Quitman Community School, a full service community school. Since retiring, Dorothy has been consulting for a variety of non-profit and educational organizations, including the National Center for Community Schools. She is the recipient of many awards and honors for her tireless efforts on behalf of Newark’s children. Dorothy holds a B.A. from The College of Wooster, has done graduate work at Bowling Green University and Kean University and is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in urban education at Rutgers-Newark.

Sarita Khurana
Sarita Khurana has solid administrative, programmatic and technical assistance experience in the field of community schools. She has worked as a Program Associate for the Children's Aid Society's National Center for Community Schools, where she helped build the capacity of schools and community-based organizations to partner for the good of children and families and then as Division Director of Community Schools and Youth Services for the Educational Alliance. Her earliest connection to the community schools strategy started at the Collaborative for Integrated School Services at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she was Assistant to the Director. Sarita is also an artist, filmmaker, trainer, community organizer and grant writer. She has a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College, a master's degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and is currently pursuing an M.F.A. in Film/Video from Columbia University, School of Arts.

Jessica Strauss
Jessica Strauss has been an independent consultant for 14 years and has served on the Center’s team for six. While with the Center, she has focused on systemic initiatives and served as project manager for the 2009 roll-out of capacity-building methodology and compendium of 15 years’ worth of materials. From 2003-2007, she led the Center’s work in Baltimore, generating a 26-school initiative and co-founding the intermediary Baltimore Community School Connections. Jessica is Co-Chair of the Urban Initiatives Network of the Coalition for Community Schools and has been active in developing the Coalition’s federal policy, evaluation and strategic initiatives. Jessica provided program development and research to the Annie E. Casey Foundation for 10 years and to Family Support America for three, and she worked with a number of other government, non-profit and foundation clients. Prior to her consulting work, Jessica was the founding Executive Director of The Family Place, a comprehensive family development center in East Baltimore. With a great deal of support from her husband, she weaves community schools work, civic engagement and four children into an exciting tapestry.

Lukas Weinstein
Lukas Weinstein started his tenure at The Children’s Aid Society in 1990, first as a social worker in the Homemaker Service department and later moving to the Preventive Services program, continuing his work to keep families together. He then worked with the CAS Community Schools as a social worker and as part of several community school programs, including gang prevention, alternative high school, after school and teen programs. Lukas also served as the Director of CAS’s Wagon Road Camp, a facility in Chappaqua, New York that runs an overnight summer camp primarily for youth from throughout New York City, as well as a year-round Respite Camp program for children with developmental disabilities. Lukas left CAS in 2002, and over the past 7 years has worked in a variety of school settings as a social worker, designing and running summer and after school programs, performing grant writing and development work, and most recently as the Administrative Coordinator of a K-8 school. He is pleased to return to CAS as an out-based consultant. Lukas holds a Masters in Social Work (MSW) from the Hunter College School of Social Work.