Board of Directors

• Sherea Westra, President
• Dave Bonaccorsi, Vice President
• Desrie Campbell, Vice President
• Beth Rasler, CPA, Treasurer
• Sandi Pantages, Secretary
• Parvin Ahmadi
• Cindy Bonior
• Pegeen Brosnan, FUDTA Representative
• Kathleen Caine
• Anne Damron
• Hilda Furtado
• Nina Moore
• Debra Watanuki
• Lara York

Associate Members

• Yogi Chugh
• Dirk Lorenz
• Raj Salwan
• 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 at the FUDTA office at 39350 Civic Center Drive (unless otherwise noted).  All meetings are open to the public and volunteers are especially welcome. To RSVP for meetings, .

Sherea Westra has served the Fremont Education Foundation as the liaison between the Foundation and the FUDTA, the local teacher’s association, for the past five years.  She has presented workshops for the Innovative Education Grants program, phone banked at the annual music telethon, and organized Welcome Teacher Day and Kids Day with the generous support of Fremont Flowers.

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.  The two have one daughter who will someday attend public schools in Fremont.

For the past nine years, she has been a second-grade teacher at Niles Elementary School.  Many hours are spent in her classroom and volunteering on many school and District committees.  Sherea has also served the Fremont Unified District Teachers Association (FUDTA) in many different capacities while teaching in FUSD.  She is currently the chair of FUDTA’s Organizing Team, member of the Beginning Teacher Support and Assistance Advisory Panel, and member of the Peer Assistance and Review Joint Panel.

Sherea looks forward to bringing in new volunteers to FEF and continuing to see the three programs succeed.

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.

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..

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.

Kathleen Caine was born at Washington Hospital and is very nearly a lifelong Fremont resident, having spent her college years in Berkeley.

After graduation, she went on to receive her Masters in Communications  from San Jose State, while raising her family.  After several years in high tech marketing, she changed careers and became a teacher with the Fremont Unified School District.  Her most recent return to college was to obtain a teaching credential in business.

She is a former PTA President, Drama Coach, English Language tutor and member of the FUSD Technology Advisory Committee.  Kathleen joined the Fremont Education Foundation Board in 2008.

After nine years of varying levels of involvement with After School Band, Anne Damron is celebrating her tenth year by assuming responsibility for the Telethon. Her background includes public relations work for a specialized retailer and a book publisher.

A part-time employee of FUSD, Anne also volunteers for Girl Scouts, numerous academic, parent and sports groups at American High School, the Gifted and Talented Student Parent Advisory Committee and is the chairperson of the district’s Health and Sex Education Advisory Committee. Along with their three children, Anne and her husband Peter have lived in Fremont since 1990.

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. 

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.

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.