2010 - 2011 FLACS Board of Trustees
Edmund Gaffney, Chairman Pedro Alvarez, Vice Chairman
Marvin Dutton, Treasurer Miguel Pena, Secretary
Mimi Fortunato, Member Francisco Lugovina, Member
Tom Reardon, Member Rev. Raymond Rivera, Member
Karen Weekes, Member
Below are some Board Member Profiles
Mimi Fortunato
A member of the FLACS Board of Directors since 2007, Ms. Fortunato is an experienced educator with a deep commitment to serving our most at-risk students with over twenty-five years of service to public schools. Ms. Fortunato began her career as an Artist-in-Residence for the Studio in a School Association and has been an elementary school art teacher in Brooklyn, a founding teacher of a high school in Manhattan, a high school Assistant Principal, and a middle school Director in East Harlem. Ms. Fortunato was the Vice President of Development for a division of Edisonlearning and the Chief Program Officer for Publicolor, a non-profit youth development organization in NYC. She is currently an Aspiring Principal in the New York City Leadership Academy and plans to assume a middle school principalship in the Bronx in the 2010-2011 school year.
Edmund Gaffney
Ed Gaffney is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of The Family Life Academy Charter School (FLACS) and has been a member of its Board since 2005. Mr. Gaffney is a General Partner of Jacobson Partners, a private equity firm focused on value oriented investments in lower middle market companies. Mr. Gaffney was initially introduced to FLACS through a former colleague who served as the President of the New York City Center for Charter School Excellence. His interest in working with FLACS stems from his desire to help improve the access to an excellent education for economically disadvantaged children. He firmly believes it is the responsibility of charter schools to set the bar for academic excellence to promote the sweeping changes that need to be made to the public school system.
Mr. Gaffneys joined FLACS at a time when it was going through some turmoil during its early years. He served as the Chairman of the Accountability Committee and leveraged his experience in working with the management teams of corporations navigating a turnaround to help FLACS. Mr. Gaffney was a strong proponent of the implementation of systems to capture and assess student achievement data to identify curriculum, teaching, and student issues so that corrective actions could be taken.
From his first meeting with Marilyn Calo, Reverend Rivera, and Franciso Lugoviña, Mr. Gaffney was impressed by the passion and the vision of its leaders. He considers it an honor to have served on the Board for the past five years and credits the school’s remarkable progress to the leadership provided by Marilyn Calo and her staff. He is proud to have been part of the progress over the past five years and is confident that FLACS will fulfill the vision of its founders by serving children from grades K through 8 and establishing itself as an example of how a community based organization can achieve academic excellence with an expertise in educating English Language Learners.
Francisco “Paco” Genko-ji Lugoviña
Mr. Lugoviña is a founding member of the Family Life Academy Charter School and was Chairperson of the Board for five years. Mr. Lugoviña is the founder and President of Hunter Group, LLC., a company focused on charter schools, under-performing companies, and social entrepreneurship. An entrepreneur himself, Mr. Lugoviña has launched several successful businesses since 1968. As Chief Operating Officer of LRF Developers, Inc., Mr. Lugoviña combined entrepreneurship with solid managerial skills to successfully develop 161 housing units in New York City and a Battery Park City Residential tower.
Mr. Lugoviña, popularly known as “Paco,” is a strong advocate for self-development and as such has actively lent his talents to help young people obtain a better life through career development. Mr. Lugoviña has a history as a community organizer and civil rights activist. He has been active in community and political affairs of New York City for most of his adult life. He is also a developer and current Chairperson of the John Lavelle Charter School in Staten Island, NY. Mr. Lugoviña is also an ordained Buddhist priest in the Soto Zen lineage and in the Zen Peacemaker Order.
He commands a wide range of experience as a human resources trainer and facilitator which has taken him from the sidewalks of the South Bronx to the boardrooms of the corporate community where he has conducted organizational development and training. Mr. Lugoviña served as Chairman of the State of New York Mortgage Agency under Governor Hugh Carey, was Bank Regulator on the New York State Banking Board for nine years, and was Chairman of the National Hispanic Housing Coalition. Furthermore, he served on the Executive Committee of the Phelps-Stokes Fund Board for 15 years, was on the Business Development Committee of the National Hispanic Business Group, and is a Board member of the Greyston Foundation where he sits on the Housing Development Committee and is Chairman of the Spiritual Pathways Committee.
Miguel Pena
Miguel Peña is the Secretary of the Family Life Academy Charter School Board of Directors- a position he has held for the past two years. Mr. Peña has been actively involved with FLACS since its inception as his oldest son was one of the first students to enroll in FLACS. Mr. Peña was first introduced to the Board of Directors when he became the President of the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) and served in that role for two years. After his two terms as the PTA President, Mr. Peña was voted in as a permanent member of the Board of Directors and has served the Board for the past seven years. Mr. Peña is married with two lovely children. Mr. Peña’s oldest son is completing his freshman year of high school in a charter school and his youngest son is four years old with hopes to become a future FLACS scholar. Mr. Peña currently works for Federal Express and also owns an electricity distribution franchise.
Dr. Rev. Raymond Rivera
Since 1964, the Rev. Dr. Raymond Rivera has served, as pastor, preacher, denominational executive, organization founder, and community builder. In the late-1960s through the 1970s, Rev. Dr. Raymond Rivera was Co-Founder and Chairperson of the Sunset Park Re-development Housing Initiatives in Brooklyn. He was Community Coordinator of the Lutheran Medical Center and developed community outreach programs for clergy and community-based organizations. From 1975 to 1984, he was National Executive for the Hispanic Council of the Reformed Church in America. In 1992, he founded the Latino Pastoral Action Center (LPAC), which started as a division of the Manhattan-based NYC Mission Society, the NYC’s oldest and largest social service agency. His vision was to develop an organization that dealt with social justice issues from a holistic perspective.
In the mid-1980s through the early 1990s, he worked as an educational advocate and trainer in School Districts No.1 and No. 4 in Manhattan, empowering parents to become partners in the educational process. As a result, parents were elected to school boards, school-based management teams, and other policy committees within educational systems. In 1999, after years as a public education reformer, Rev. Dr. Rivera led a team of community and education leaders to establish the Family Life Academy Charter School.