Board of Directors

• Dave Bonaccorsi, President
• Nina Moore, Vice President
• Lara York, Vice President
• Beth Rasler, CPA, Treasurer
• Sandi Pantages, Secretary
• Parvin Ahmadi
• Desrie Campbell
• Beverly Chernoff. FUSD Representative
• Debra Pearson
• Terri Trevarthen
• Debra Watanuki
• Sherea Westra, FUDTA Representative

Associate Members

• Yogi Chugh
• Hilda Furtado
• Joe Gallegos
• Dirk Lorenz
• Sharon Yap

Honorary Members

• Hattie Hughes
• Anu Natarajan
• Robert Wasserman

The Fremont Education Foundation is currently looking for new board members.  The Board meets monthly, and board members are expected to be actively involved in one or more aspects of our annual fundraising activities or in administering one of our programs.  Please contact us for more information about joining our Board of Directors.

Meetings are scheduled as follows:

All meetings time are from 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. and are held in the Magnolia Room, on the first floor of the District Office in the IMC suite (unless otherwise noted).  All meetings are open to the public and volunteers are especially welcome. To RSVP for meetings, email David Bonaccorsi.

*Note: the March and April meetings will be held at the FUDTA office at 39350 Civic Center Drive, Suite 430 (fourth floor).

David Bonaccorsi is a life-long resident of Fremont since 1961.   He played the clarinet as a marching and school band participant at both Centerville Junior High and Washington High School, after first learning to play this band instrument in an after-school program at Maloney Elementary.  David is an attorney and a partner with the law firm of Bernard, Balgley & Bonaccorsi in Newark.  He has been blessed with two children, and a spouse, brother and father who are or have been educators in the Fremont Unified School District.

He currently serves as a Planning Commissioner on the City of Fremont’s Planning Commission, a Board member of OneChild, and a member of the Fremont Chamber of Commerce’s Government Affairs Committee.  His other local community activities have included being Co-Chair of Fremont Unified’s Measure B Health and Safety Bond Campaign, a member of the City of Fremont’s Integrated Waste Management Affairs Committee, and an alumnus of the Fremont Chamber’s Leadership Fremont.

Nina Moore has served on the board of the Fremont Education Foundation since 1997, and served as Foundation president from 1999 - 2003.  She is also currently serving her second term on the Fremont Unified School District Board of Education. 

Nina has lived in Fremont since 1991 with her husband Mike and their two children.  She is a transplanted East-Coaster who moved to the Bay Area in 1988 to join Sun Microsystems, where she worked as a Director of Information Technology until 1993.  After leaving Sun to become head of Client Services for a San Mateo start-up, Nina left the workforce in 1995 to spend more time with her family and take a more active role in her community.  In 2008, she returned to the workforce as Director of Government and Community Affairs for the Fremont Chamber of Commerce. 

Her previous local community involvement has included: League of Women Voters, Action Committee Chair; Tri-Cities Children’s Centers (now Kidango) Board of Directors; FUSD Commission on Instructional Equity; FUSD Community Facilities Committee; Niles PTA. 

Lara York has been a board member of FEF since 2000 and served as President from 2003-05 and Vice-President from 2001-03 and 2005-08.  In 2006 Lara was elected to the Fremont Unified School District Board of Education.

Lara moved to Fremont in 1992 after completing her BS in Business Administration from California State University, Chico.  After working for a major publishing company for several years, she made the decision to stay at home with her children and become more active in the community. 

Lara is an active member of the community including her involvement over the years with groups including: The Fremont Chamber of Commerce; The League of Women Voters of Fremont, Newark & Union City; the American Association of University Women; Citizens for Better Community; The Tri-Cities Democratic Forum; The Cultural Arts Council; The F.U.N. Mothers' Club; PTA; School Site Council; FUSD Financial Advisory Committee, Parent Representative Advisory Assembly and the Community Facilities Committee.

Beth Rasler, CPA, joined the board in June 2001 to serve as treasurer.  She was named the 60,000^th resident of Fremont when her family moved here in 1962.  Beth grew up in Fremont and is a graduate of California State University, Stanislaus.  She has a daughter in the 6^th grade in Fremont who plays the baritone in her 3^rd year of after school band. Beth is employed by Greenstein, Rogoff, Olsen and Co., a CPA firm in Fremont.  She is an alumnus of the Leadership Fremont program, a volunteer for Girl Scouts and a volunteer at her daughter’s elementary school.

Sandi Pantages served on the Fremont Education Foundation board in the mid-1990’s, and rejoined the board in late 2001. Now retired from the Alameda County Library, Sandi worked in the Fremont libraries for 32 years and was the manager of the Fremont Main Library for many years. She is an active member of Niles Rotary, and is also involved with the Fremont Symphony Guild and the League of Women Voters of the Fremont, Newark and Union City Area. Sandi grew up in Concord, obtained her undergraduate and graduate degrees from UCLA and worked a few years at the Library of Congress before returning to the Bay Area in 1969. She lives with her husband Dick in the Brookvale area of Fremont.

Parvin Ahmadi has lived in the City of Fremont for 14 years and has worked for the Fremont Unified School District for 10 years. She started in Fremont as a  teacher at Weibel Elementary Schools. She later became a Vice Principal at Weible and a Principal at Parkmont Elementary School for five years. Parvin has been the Director of Elementary Education in Fremont since 2005.   She has been a board member of the foundation for two years.  She has worked on the Allocations Committee to support the foundation's efforts to award grants (IEG) to classroom, as well as the Elementary After School Band program.

Desrie Campbell

Desrie Campbell is the owner of Benefits Solutions which provides comprehensive health  benefits and financial services to individuals, families, professional associations, executives and small to midsized businesses.  Desrie has lived in Fremont since 1996.  She and her husband, Willie, have 4 young men, all of whom attended and graduated from Fremont Schools.  As an active member of the community, Desrie serves as the Chair of the Alameda County Commission on the Status of Women’s Gender Racial and Equity Committee and she is a 2007 Emerge graduate.  She is a member of the Fremont Community Engagement and Advisory Board, Fremont Chamber of Commerce, the Black Women Organized for Political Action (BWOPA).  She holds a BS in Business Administration from the University of Phoenix, Fremont..

Beverly (Bev) Chernoff has worked for the Fremont Unified School District for thirty-seven years.  She started in Fremont as a student teacher and got her first teaching position at Hacienda Elementary School in Niles.  She later became a Reading Specialist, a Teacher-on-Assignment for Curriculum/Staff Development, a Vice Principal, a Principal, the district's K-3 Literacy Coordinator, the district's K-12 Literacy Coordinator, the Director of Elementary Education, and now is the Director of Certificated Personnel in the Human Resources Department.  Bev has been a board member of the foundation for seventeen years.  She has worked on the Allocations Committee to support the foundation's efforts to award grants (IEG) to classroom teachers.  She is Fremont Unified School District's representative to the board.

Debra Pearson has been involved with the Fremont Education Foundation since 1999. Debbi was raised in Fremont and returned in 1993 to raise her son here.  She attended Linda Vista Elementary and her son attended Mission Valley Elementary, and both graduated from Hopkins Jr. High and Mission San Jose High School.  Debbi works for Superior Courts of Alameda County as a Legal Processing Assistant III  for the Juvenile Courts.  Debbi has served on several Fremont Unified School District committees including:  The Property Committee, Community Facilities Committee, The Family Life Committee and the Equity Commission.

Terri Trevarthen was raised in the bay Area and moved to Fremont in 1992.  She has two children who attend school in the F.U.S.D.  She works as a Special Education Aide at one of the elementary schools in Fremont.  Both of her children at one time were enrolled in the after school band program and that is how she got involved with FEF.  Terri has been with FEF since 2006.  She has also been involved with PTA at both the elementary and junior high school level, and also with Fremont Council PTA.

Debra Watanuki, UCLA (B.S., M.S.), taught in post-secondary education until she changed careers upon earning a law degree from Hastings College of the Law in 1991.  In addition to her own legal practice in business and estate planning here in Fremont, Debra serves as a commissioner for the city’s Human Relations Commission, and enthusiastically promotes education by volunteering at her child’s school and the Fremont Education Foundation.

Sherea Westra has been teaching second grade at Niles Elementary for the past six years.  She is a life-long resident of Fremont, having attended Oliveira Elementary, Thornton Jr. High, and American HS.  She left Fremont for Humboldt State University following high school, and received her Bachelors of Arts and California Teaching Credential there.  She also met the catch of her life there too - her husband.  Sherea has served the Fremont Unified District Teachers Association (FUDTA) in many different capacities since coming to Fremont.  She is currently the chair of the New Teacher Support Committee, and sits on the PAR Joint Panel. She looks forward to continuing the strong relationship that FUDTA has with FEF.