Founder & Director
Laura Fokkena has 20+ years experience working in the field of education as a literacy consultant, ESL teacher, and education director in K-12 out-of-school programs in the greater Boston area. She has a master's degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Ph.D. in Education from Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is also an adjunct professor in Lesley's Global Studies department.
Laura homeschooled her daughter in elementary school and then sent her to one of Boston’s exam schools for high school; at that point she and her daughter both assumed that would be the end of the homeschooling chapter in their lives. But at 16, midway through her sophomore year, her daughter decided to leave high school and return to homeschooling. Within three weeks, Laura received calls and e-mails from twelve of her daughter’s high school friends, wanting to know how they could do the same. Stunned by the desperate tone from some of these teens -- most of them high-performing students who loved to read and loved to learn, but hated going to school -- Laura founded Rise Out in 2012 as a resource for teenagers who were unhappy in high school and searching for alternatives. Since then, the organization has expanded its programming to include students from veteran homeschooling families seeking greater challenges in their teen years.
Since 2014, Laura has taught three Rise Out classes every semester at Voyagers, a homeschool co-op in Chelmsford, MA. Most of her classes have social justice themes, including Immigration in America, The Transatlantic Slave Trade, Climate Justice, Red State/Blue State, Gender in the Media, To Kill a Mockingbird, and 1492.
Board of Directors
Michael Mayo. After graduating from Harvard and a year as a journalist in Washington, D.C., Mike moved to Boston’s Bowdoin Street and began his teaching career at Nativity Prep in Roxbury, a free middle school for boys from families below the poverty line. Six years later, he worked with his Uphams Corner neighbors to open a charter school to serve the local community. After seven years as the school's principal and director, Mike moved to the UK to get his Ph.D. in English literature. He teaches undergraduates at Oxford University, and looks forward to the day when he comes back home to Uphams Corner.
Arlene Dallalfar. Arlene divides her time between Cambridge and Tehran. She is a retired professor of sociology at Lesley University, where she taught courses in media literacy, globalization, and gender studies. She is also a filmmaker and is currently working on a documentary about the Iranian diaspora. She has a BA from Tufts University and an MA and Ph.D. from UCLA. She is interested in youth advocacy, transnational feminism, and issues of social justice.
Janee Ronca. Janee was Rise Out's first student and joined the board at age 19. More than eight years later she has an A.A. degree in Education and is working as a full-time nanny while she finishes her master’s degree to become an elementary schoolteacher in Boston Public Schools. She has worked as an AmeriCorps volunteer with Jumpstart and has been a teaching assistant in several Rise Out classes, including Arts Monday and Big History. In addition to being a board member, she currently serves as Rise Out’s Student and Intern Coordinator.
WRITING PROGRAM
Heidi Sandler teaches Rise Out's online writing classes. Heidi is a technical writing consultant with over 20 years of experience in writing, training, public speaking, and meeting facilitation. She has also been a college composition instructor, a Toastmaster, a youth leader, and a copy editor in the academic, entrepreneurial, and non-profit sectors. She collaborated on the writing and editing of Wanderlust, a family memoir, and most recently edited Steamscapes: North America, an alternative history/steampunk game-setting book. Heidi has a BA in German and an MA in English Linguistics/ESL from Northern Illinois University and a doctorate (Ed.D.) in Leadership in Curriculum and Instruction from Aurora University.
TEACHERS
Anna Mudd has been an educator in a variety of contexts, often working on intersections between global studies, religion, culture, and the arts. A former middle school classroom teacher, she is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School. She has spent the past five years working in educator outreach from Harvard's Centers for Middle Eastern Studies and Russian and Eurasian Studies, as well as online educational outlets through Harvard's Division of Continuing Education and HarvardX. She is a librarian at Papercut Zine Library and co-editor of Muqtatafat, the first anthology of comics from Arabic-speaking countries to be published in the U.S.
Alana Parkinson is a mixed media artist with a degree from Boston University in Public Health and Women and Gender studies. She was an art teacher with a Boston-based art program called Dot Art for three years. She recently returned to Boston after living in Spain for a year studying Spanish, painting, mural making, and textile art. To Alana, visual art takes many forms and meanings. One theme in her art is fantastical world building for healthy escapism. Alana gains inspiration from street art and art that is disruptive and transformative. She also enjoys making textured work that explores the healing and grounding properties of texture-based stimulation. She has worked with many different artists to explore these themes and concepts and is excited to do so with Rise Out.
Amanda Shabowich is a Boston native currently serving as the Youth Voice Project Coordinator and Research Assistant with the Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy, the Alumni Coordinator at Boston Day and Evening Academy, and co-facilitator of the Boston Community Action Team. After graduating from Boston Day and Evening Academy, she worked as a Teacher's Assistant and got her first experience working with young adults, and soon after worked as the Assistant to the Transition Year Director at the school as well. When Amanda began with Youth Voice Project in April 2015, she was able to become an advocate for resources for out of school youth, plan and host youth-centric events, and build partnerships with other youth-serving organizations across the city. She has spoken about her work across the country, as well as designed and led workshops on the importance of amplifying Youth Voice through storytelling, self-care for opportunity youth, designing inclusive youth programming, and inter-generational relationship building. Throughout her years working with young adults she has tried to take an arts-focused approach, hosting a Social Justice Art Night as well as a Youth Talent Show to amplify the voices, stories, experiences, and talents of youth and young adults. In high school she was a part of the Spoken Word club, taught lessons on poetry and creative writing, and has performed her own pieces throughout the years as well.
Photo credit: Laura Fokkena