Leadership

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.

Ande is the President of Deer Brook Consulting, an information security, privacy, and technology consulting firm delivering services to the small/medium business market. Under his leadership, the firm is focused on effectively and sustainably right-sizing process and technology to match client capabilities. Representative client engagements include CIO/CISO for hire, breach response and remediation, and security program assessments and development.

Ande brings extensive government leadership experience, including services as the Chief Information Officer for the State of Maine where he managed a staff of over 700 IT professionals and led the State’s digital transformation efforts.

Ande holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Nuclear Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a Master of Public Affairs from the University of Connecticut, and a JD from the University of Maine School of Law.

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.

Bob has been involved with public school education for sixty years. He has served as a teacher for six years, two years as an Administrative Assistant, thirty years as a Superintendent of Schools, and eight years as Executive Director for the Maine Charter School Commission.

He has also served as a member, Vice Chair and Interim Executive Director for the Maine Coalition for Excellence in Education and as a Board member on its successor organization, Educate Maine.

He has a Bachelor of Science from Boston College, Masters from Boston State College, and a leadership certificate from the University of Vermont.

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.

Anna 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.

Matt Newberg is in his fifth year as Head of School for the Maine Academy of Natural Sciences. Prior to serving MeANS, he spent 14 years in teaching and administration at Hyde School in Bath, Maine.

His career in education began at the Otter Lake Conservation School in Greenfield, NH in 1990 where he was first introduced to immersive, outdoor education.

He holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Vermont and a certificate in Leadership Studies from the University of Southern Maine.

Matt lives with his family in Harpswell.

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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