Leadership

Jacinda co-founded Fiddlehead Art & Science Center in 2002. After more than a decade of early childhood and after school experience, she chose to pursue the creation and opening of one of Maine’s first public charter schools – Fiddlehead School of Arts & Sciences.

Jacinda has her Masters in International Marketing and Management as well as a background in project management, both in non-profit and for-profit businesses. She is fluent in Spanish and with a vision and love of art and culture, she has helped bring alternative education to the forefront in our community.

Her husband, Tony; daughters – Marita & Yote; and sons Dexter and Dante inspire and encourage her daily. Her biggest passion is her family.

Joe is a retired Maine educator who has served as a teacher and school administrator (elementary principal and Superintendent) for over 45 years. During the past ten years, Joe has worked as a consultant for several Maine charter schools, was an Interim Head of School for two Maine charter schools and served as a consultant for the Maine Charter School Commission.

Joe’s civic and community involvement includes serving as a Board member for Inland Hospital, Mt. Merici Academy (Waterville), and Fiddlehead School, as well as volunteering at the Waterville Homeless Shelter and Oakland Food Pantry.

Joe enjoys spending time entertaining family and friends in backyard BBQs, watching his grandsons play soccer and baseball, and attending his granddaughter’s dance recitals.

Joe earned a BA from Colby College, and a MED and EDD from the University of Maine at Orono in Educational Leadership.

Jana earned her BS and MS degrees in Education from the University of Bridgeport, graduating Magna Cum Laude. She taught Business Education at New Canaan High School in Connecticut and was owner and CEO of Lapoint Industries in Auburn, Maine.

Jana has served as a Trustee for Dean College (Franklin, MA), Maine Community College, and Cheverus High School (Portland, ME). Her civic involvement also includes serving as a member of the State Board of Education and the Maine Commission of Charter Schools.

Jana resides in Falmouth, Maine and is the mother of four children, 13 grandchildren, and 6 great grandchildren.

Bill Doughty, currently chair of the Fiddlehead School Board, is a retired school leader who has served as principal and superintendent in Maine and Wisconsin. He has a MS and Ph. D. in school leadership from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has taught graduate education courses for the University of New England and the University of Phoenix.

His current educational interests are the economies of charter schools, the science of reading, inclusionary models of special education, and integration of the arts and outdoor education in public school curriculums.

Bob Dodge is a native of South Portland, Maine. He attended local schools and graduated from South Portland High School. He graduated from Boston University with a baccalaureate degree in Business Studies and went on to receive a Master of Business Administration degree from Babson College, where he subsequently instructed in the graduate program. He has over 35 years of business management experience in various for-profit enterprises, not-for-profit organizations, and educational institutions. He has held positions of leadership in technology, financial management, and business administration.

He has worked as an employee in many types of businesses and has been a consultant to small-to-medium-sized businesses throughout Southern Maine for years. He has also founded three business ventures. He is currently retired from active employment but performs periodic business consulting services to local businesses. He has enjoyed being part of alternative educational programming and is a champion of the charter school movement in Maine.

In addition to his many business involvements, Bob has served on the Boards of Directors for several non-profit organizations since 1991. He has served as Treasurer and First Vice President of the World Affairs Council of Maine, where he was the 2003 recipient of the Bea Chapman Minot Award. He was Treasurer, Vice President, and President (three years in each position) of the Board of VNA Home Health & Hospice of South Portland, ME. He also was a Trustee of Mercy Health System of Maine for three years. He served on the Board of Evergreen Credit Union in Portland (2014-2020). He served as Secretary and Vice Chair on the Good Will – Hinckley Board of Directors from 2014 to 2022, receiving the Glen Cummings Helping Hands award in 2022. He currently is the Chair of Maine Academy of Natural Sciences (first Charter School in Maine) Board of Directors and was the Chair of the Finance Committee. He has been a member of the Maine Alliance for the Public Charter Schools since 2025, and he has been a member of the Topsham, Maine Finance Committee since 2023.

He lives with his wife in Topsham, Maine, and has three daughters and three granddaughters.

Anna Marie Klein-Christie is the Executive Director at Baxter Academy. She grew up in Gambier, Ohio, the daughter of a Kenyon College professor and a community activist. After graduating with a B.A. in Political Science, her early career focused on advertising based in Chicago, Paris, and Prague. This experience gave her the foundation to successfully join the nonprofit community as a leader in donor-centric fundraising, program development, public policy, and community engagement. For nearly two decades she has worked for the well-being of youth and families to build healthy communities. She believes that the collective passion, energy, and wisdom of youth can solve apparently intractable problems and that it is incumbent on those in positions of authority to create opportunities for their success.

As the former Executive Director of Rippleffect, she led the expansion of leadership programs from Casco Bay to year-round expeditionary collaborations with Portland area schools. Through the height of the pandemic she worked as the Director of International Development/Director of the US office for Safe Passage, an expeditionary learning school based in the Guatemala City garbage dump community. After working with extraordinary colleagues in Guatemala, Germany, and the United States, she is greatly inspired to collaborate with the team at Baxter Academy to expand the STEM learning community, strengthen educational and employment opportunities for students, and engage brilliant young minds in the work of our shared future.

She loves traveling with her family to destinations near and far, playing with her labrador retriever on the beach, and sharing Czech family traditions with friends.

Heather King has a B.A. in Elementary Education and an M.A. in English and has completed Doctoral level courses in Educational Leadership. Heather is currently the Head of School at Maine Arts Academy working for the school for the past 8 years.

Heather has held several teaching roles that span from elementary grades, high school through college level. Her recent positions include dean of students, high school teacher, team Leader of online faculty at Southern New Hampshire University, English and Liberal Arts adjunct faculty at Southern New Hampshire University and adjunct faculty of English at Allegany College of Maryland and Purdue University.

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Lēza Packard is the founding director of the Ecology Learning Center, Maine's newest public charter school, opened in 2020.

Lēza began teaching 25 years ago with Teach for America. That experience sparked a passion to expand and enhance learning opportunities for youth wherever she has lived. Lēza completed her bachelor’s at University of California at Davis and master’s in environmental education at Prescott College in Arizona, and has taught every grade from preschool to college, in a range of subjects from middle school science to high school French & Spanish at district and charter public schools.

In Arizona, Lēza founded an award-winning outdoor science program at six district public schools. In Maine, she served as executive director of a permaculture farm in Brooks, director of the Outdoor Classroom at Chewonki, and education director at Morris Farm in Wiscasset.

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Judith earned a B.A. from Middlebury College, an M.A from Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the City University of New York Graduate Center.

Continuing threads in Judith Denton Jones' professional life include trying to address the effects of social stratification, inequalities in opportunity, and the policy changes needed to improve institutions’ effectiveness in meeting their goals.

After several years working with the US Department of State and US Agency for International Development, primarily on Latin America, she switched careers and became a program analyst for the NJ Department of Higher Education when community colleges were initiated, and teacher colleges were transformed into liberal arts programs.

Moving to Washington, DC, her family participated in the “Six School Complex”, an early public school choice program that successfully brought families back to public education and pioneered new ways of financing arts and other programs.

This work led to intensive efforts to allow public chartered schools in DC, which grew from a few in 1997 to dozens of programs that enroll 48% of DC public school students and have inspired the traditional DC Public School system to improve its operations and outcomes.