Avi Black is History-Social Science Coordinator at the Alameda County Office of Education and Project Director of the “Words That Made America 2” TAH program. He has been an active member of CCSS for twenty years and has served on several committees. He taught Grade 6 World History for ten years in San Francisco’s Mission District before taking on classes in U.S. History, Civics and Economics at SF’s School of the Arts. Besides classroom teaching, Avi has: co-directed Linking San Francisco, a widely-respected service learning program; served on the Executive Council of the World History Association; taught Social Studies Methods in the preservice program at New College of CA; and was one of the founding members of “World History for Us All.” He has an A.B. in Biology from Harvard College, a Master’s in Public Policy from U.C. Berkeley, and his teaching credential from S.F. State University. Avi has also played Balinese music for nearly 25 years as a member of Gamelan Sekar Jaya, and has traveled extensively in Asia, Africa and Central America.
 

Position Statement:

Unnecessarily literal interpretations of the state History-Social Science standards have led to aberrations that undermine the subject’s rightful place at the center of effective schools. It is critical that teachers, novice and experienced alike, come together to share with one another insights into  effective curricular and instructional practices – and also to advocate for the recognition of history’s importance where it has been eroded so that classes are dissolved or pressures are placed for it to take on secondary status to other “skills-based” subject areas. This takes conversation about why history IS important, and why social science-based skills are critical to students’ success in life and as contributing citizens in a diverse and dynamic society. And it is in organizations such as CCSS where these actions best take place! 

Brent is a middle school social studies teacher active in local SS councils, CCSS, and NCSS, Co-Chair CCSS C & I Committee, member CCSS Board of Directors and Conference Committees, former Chair NCSS Publications and Instruction Committees, member of Social Education and Professional Ethics Committees and NCSS House of Delegates, with numerous presentations since 1982 at CCSS and NCSS conferences. Brent has won fellowships, grants, and awards including OMSD, San Bernardino County, Inland Empire SS Council, CCSS, and NCSS Outstanding Middle Level Social Studies Teacher of the Year. Brent has served as a consultant to publishers, school districts, and county offices.

Position Statement:

Social studies K-12 is under assault across California. Now is the time to gird ourselves up against this attack and prepare for the future. I suggest three strategies that can enable us to thrive as a profession. First, we need to re-entrench as a profession by immersing ourselves in our subject matter. The more we embrace with passion the vibrancy and relevancy of our subject the more we can convey an enthusiastic, united front for the future to students, parents, and communities across California. Second, it is crucial that we as a profession expand our vision. Social studies should encompass all the social sciences and humanities including art, literature, music, architecture, and dance. By expanding our vision to include the humanities we embrace who we are as a people and what our students can become in the future. Finally, we need to open our tool box to effective strategies that sharpen the art and craft of social studies teachers including best practices from the past: inquiry based lessons and critical thinking skill activities as well as embracing new pedagogical and technological tools. The best of the past can work in concert with the present and future. To thrive as a profession we must work together to prepare students with a heartfelt passion for our country and its democratic ideals.

Biography:

Shane Sitorius received his B.A. Degree/teaching credential and CLAD from California State University. Shane has been a teacher of history-social science for over 17 years and is NCLB Highly Qualified. He has been a member of CCSS since 1994; has been on the CCSS Board of Directors for over five years and has served on the Curriculum and Instruction, the Diversity and Social Justice, as well as the Conference committees. Shane is currently an educational consultant.

Position Statement:

CCSS is an organization that is consistently striving to keep History-Social Science alive and well.  I believe in keeping History-Social Science in the minds of not only students and educators, but parents as well.  It is essential to remain positive in these rough times when districts are cutting budgets. I would like to continue my efforts in promoting social studies through CCSS and will make it my goal to promote History-Social Science.

Cori Walters Borges has been an elementary school educator for twenty years at Cuddeback Elementary School, a rural K-8 school in Humboldt County. She has taught 4-8th and currently teaches 6-8th grades. She earned a BA in Multiple Subjects and Teaching Credential from Humboldt State University. She has served in numerous leadership, administrative and board positions in professional, fraternal, and community organizations at the school, district, community, county and state levels.

Position Statement: 

I believe we are at a critically important crossroads as educators and citizens to advocate for social studies. As an American, a parent, and an elementary school teacher, I realize and understand the great importance of an educated, informed, and proactive citizenry. Year after year, our educational community sees our resources diminishing through budgets cuts and our school accountability rising as test scores are published. As a teacher, I see the continuously growing lack of civic knowledge and participation as well as ever increasing rates of apathy by the families we serve. The need for educators to define and advocate for our profession as well as focus, communicate, educate and rally our families, communities, and colleagues toward a more informed, proactive citizenry has never been greater. CCSS can be a conduit through the professional development opportunities provided for California educators and their political acuity and lobbying efforts.

I have worked as an elementary teacher for more than 27 years. In the earlier years my bilingual skills were used fully as a bilingual educator. I have worked in classrooms in Stanislaus as well as Merced County. Currently I teach fourth grade at Wakefield Elementary School in Turlock. Over the years of my service to public education I have taken many Continuing Ed. courses, and in 1996 I completed a Masters Degree in
Curriculum and Instruction at CSU Stanislaus.


Position Statement:
Public education offers to all students the opportunity to succeed in this world. I believe that an integral part of any education is instruction in history, geography, and civics. It is imperative that
the young people that go through our schools learn the values of a democratic society, and that we all have a responsibility to participate in it. In a time when so many of us work in Program
Improvement schools, some teachers feel pressed to eliminate the teaching of social studies. I fear for the future of democracy if students, especially those from immigrant families, are not given the background and history of our cities, counties, state, and nation.

Biography:

Amanda Roraback has received a BA and MA in history and has worked towards her PhD. in history at UCLA. Roraback is a public speaker and the author of the Nutshell Notes series of books including "Iraq in a Nutshell," "Islam," "Iran" and other titles with accompanying ebooks and Powerpoint presentations. She is also the creator of the www.worldinanutshell.com website. Roraback taught history in Lithuania and has taught professional development courses.


Position Statement:

As a board member for CCSS, Amanda Roraback aims to contribute her technological skills (she designed the website for SCSSA, www.mysocialstudies.org, helped draw traffic to CCSS's website and has done all the technical work for her books and websites) to help raise CCSS to the technological standard valued by social studies teachers today. She is also determined to help CCSS develop new and creative ways to serve, educate, entertain and reward California's social studies teachers by contributing useful and accessible content to the CCSS website, introducing innovative programs to the annual conference, and expanding opportunities for professional development. As an author, speaker and journalist, Roraback is also prepared to draw on outside resources and contacts to convey educators' needs and garner external cooperation and support.

Position Statement: 

Ann Henry earned her B.A. from the University of Minnesota and her teaching credential from San Francisco State University. She has recently retired from over 30 years of teaching in San Francisco Unified, from Kindergarten to 6th grade, and continues working as a volunteer and substitute. She is currently the Bay Area Regional Coordinator for the California Geographic Alliance, and is a member of the National Council for Geographic Education. She is serving on the CCSS Board, is currently on the Membership Committee and President of the San Francisco Council, and has been a regular Conference presenter since 1999.

Position Statement: 

As a teacher, the Social Studies always drove my curriculum, integrating with language arts, math, science, and the arts. Allowing students to understand and implement these connections makes for a meaningful, worthwhile and powerful education. It is imperative that we continue the advocacy for strengthening the teaching and inclusion of Social Studies for our students so they understand the culture of our democracy. With the current state of education emphasizing literacy and math to the exclusion of the study of geography, history, civics and economics, this does a disservice to our students and sets the stage for their continuing ignorance, which can only weaken our future. CCSS has the focus and will to be a powerful advocate for supporting teachers and revising current laws which restrict and narrow the curriculum. Finally, as an elementary teacher, I hope to encourage participation of our elementary teachers in CCSS through increased membership and professional development and workshops to support them in their classrooms.

 Biography:

Stan Pesick received his B.A. from the University of Michigan, his PhD from Stanford University, and his teaching credential from San Francisco State. Stan taught history-social science for 18 years in Oakland Unified. He has also taught methods courses at SF State, Stanford, and Mills College.  He currently directs the Oakland Unified School District Teaching American History grant.

Position Statement: 

I stand an advocate for history and social studies in an era where high stakes testing has pushed districts and schools to either marginalize history/social studies instruction or to push for instruction that compromises the subject area's mission of developing knowledgeable, thoughtful, articulate, and engaged citizens. CCSS can be a resource for teachers and districts as they begin to integrate into instruction the historical thinking and academic literacy skills outlined in the new Common Core State Standards.  My work in Oakland Unified School District developing and implementing district wide writing assessments, which I work to share with colleagues across the state, provides me with experience that can also inform CCSS's work of advocating for more thoughtful district and statewide assessments.  CCSS can be a major force in helping develop assessment programs that support day to day instruction in classrooms that brings to life the essential role history/social studies has to play in developing college and career ready students. Students who are ready to participate in thoughtful civic discourse with the diverse population of fellow citizens they will encounter as they leave K-12 education.   Additionally, my program management experience will help in coming up with ideas for sound practices to help the organization “weather the storm” it currently faces in terms of maintaining and even expanding membership, and streamlining operations to live within budget constraints.

Biography:

  I am a child of a teacher, which helped develop my love for students. As an eighth grader I had the opportunity to have a teacher who made history come alive. It is due to this teacher that I developed my love for history. I have been a teacher in San Jose Unified for the past 23 years, where I enjoy enriching student's minds.

Position Statement: 

Social Studies should be taught to inspire students. As teacher's we stimulate our student’s minds to think locally, as well as globally. They must be able to challenge themselves to look outside their own community into the world. They should be able to see how the decisions that they make affect the world around them. By having students approach Social Studies through the lens of how they affect the world, we as teachers are able to aid in them becoming responsible citizens of the world.

Our students are our future leaders and we must provide them with the necessary tools to do the best job they can. If we do not prepare them properly, we may not know what they are truly capable of in the future. I hope that we all do our best job in providing these tools.

As an instructional consultant for 12 years at Tulare County Office of Education, and a classroom teacher for 8 years, Ms. Ingrao has had a broad spectrum of experience K-12^th grades.  A graduate of Fresno State University, Ms. Ingrao earned her masters’ degree in Curriculum and Instruction from Fresno Pacific University. 

Currently, Marsha Ingrao provides professional development for teachers in the area of History Social-Science and English language arts.  In addition, she serves as the CISC History Social Science lead for Region VII, and sits on other local, regional, and state committees to provide Tulare County districts with updated information on California History Standards, Frameworks, and assessments.

Ms. Ingrao’s responsibilities as a consultant also include coordinating History Day, Mock Trial, Project Citizen, We the People, Allensworth Then and Now, and Remembering the Holocaust.  She also collaborates with the Fresno County Historical Society to open Civil War Time Travelers to Tulare County fifth and eighth graders.  She has also worked on several collaborative projects which have been published including entries in Tales of Time, The History of the Dairy Industry in Tulare County, and A Place Beyond the Dust Bowl Study Guide.

Position Statement: 

Students matter; therefore history-social studies has to matter. We humans do not come by knowledge through osmosis, but it is learned.  History Social-Studies is the study of the lives and events that molded our world today.   If we want our students to be the leaders of tomorrow, they need to understand how the world works.  As teachers and administrators, we need to be advocates for ensuring that students are taught history, civics, economics, and geography from kindergarten through 12^th grade.  If not us, then who will teach our students to think critically?  Who will guide them to reason rather than to react violently when life seems out of control?  With so much information available on the internet, who will guide the students to look at the writers behind the words, and question the validity and authority of what they read if we do not?  My position is to take an active role in the educational community to improve what and how we teach students.

Ruth Luevanos has a B.A. in Criminal Justice from George Washington University, a M.A. in Instructional Leadership from Argosy University, and a J.D. from Loyola Law School. In addition to having taught for ten years in K-12 classrooms, she has also been a PTF board member, WASC coordinator and educational consultant. She holds California teaching credentials in History and Multiple Subjects. She has been a presenter and attendee at the NCSS, CCEA, CCSS, and AERA annual conferences.

Position Statement: 

As we struggle to revamp our educational system in California and through NCLB, we need to reprioritize the goals for our students and focus on the overall purpose of public education, which is to creative active and productive citizens who are prepared to make critical decisions that benefit the social welfare of our state and our country. Only through social studies, history, economics and government courses can we teach our students what it truly means to be active and productive citizens, how to analyze and make critical decisions, and how to make a positive impact in their communities, state and nation. As a CCSS board member, I will continue to advocate for full implementation and support of the social studies/history curriculum from the elementary to the high school level by connecting educational research to effective educational policy that will benefit all Californians.

Deborah Granger has worked as a teacher, administrator, and county HSS coordinator since 1989. She holds a BA in History from UCLA and an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership from USC.  Debbie is a long-time member of CCSS and previously has served as a government relations committee member.

Position Statement: 

CCSS provides a unique and essential forum for teachers across California.  It takes just a moment reviewing any day’s headlines to recognize the urgency of helping youngsters become the adults we will need them to be.  Implementation of Common Core Standards highlights the urgency of addressing any perceptions that history and the social studies are not relevant today or can be incorporated into language arts instruction.  Howard Zinn explained that through history and the social sciences we develop filters and lenses to understand the present and to make a positive difference on the future.  My goal in promoting history and social studies education through CCSS is to find new and innovative ways to connect all that CCSS has to offer to teachers in training and in the field.

Tracy Middleton received both her B.A. and teaching credential from California State University, San Marcos. She also received a M.E. from CSUSM. Tracy has taught history/social science for thirteen years, and for the past seven years, has been lead teacher of the middle school H/SS leadership team for her district. She has been a member of CCSS since 2004, and a member of the governing board of the San Diego chapter of CCSS for the past 4 years.

Position Statement: 

With the narrowing of the curriculum in many districts across California, social studies has taken a backseat to reading and math. I believe the teaching of social studies is critical to creating informed citizens who will lead us in the future, and therefore, should be considered as important as reading and math. CCSS is an organization that realizes the importance of advocating for the teaching of social studies. Through its work with California legislators and the Department of Education, CCSS has begun to make inroads into putting social studies back into the curriculum. As a member of the CCSS board, I look forward to furthering the work CCSS has begun in promoting the importance of social studies. It will be my goal to help make social studies a key component of K-12 curriculum in classrooms across California. Our future depends on the actions we take now.

Nancy Noble graduated with a B.S. degree from BYU in Recreation Administration and spent 20 years at UCLA Lake Arrowhead Conference Center and BRUIN WOODS Family Resort as Assistant and then Executive Director. Ten years ago she entered the teaching profession as a 7^th grade English/World teacher/department chairman. [She has been recognized as school, district and Daily Press Teacher of the Year, as well as Outstanding Middle School Social Studies Teacher in 2010 by CCSS.]  She has served as VP of the Inland Empire Council of the Social Studies for three years. 


Position Statement: 
Social studies is a critical part of education because it makes students into good citizens.  More can be done to market its importance to legislators, administrators, parents and students.  Living history and real life civic experiences and discussions are some of the best connectors of students to the value of school, and social studies can be the fun part of what prepares students to enter their careers as eager, productive citizens.  My years of experience in recreation/education where quality of program is the first concern and service accountability translates into financial success, bring a unique perspective and skill set.  The students are our customers and deserve enduring quality.  Key to providing this is the California Council of the Social Studies, where teachers network, hone their skills, and band together as a powerful voice for excellence. 

Biography:

Joel Rothblatt teaches social science at Emerson Middle School, a Title 1 School in the Los Angeles Unified School District.  He earned his B.A. from UCLA, his MA in International Affairs from The Fletcher School (Tufts/Harvard Universities), and his MBA in International Management from UCLA.   He is Past-President of the Southern California Social Science Association, Past-Chair of the Membership Committee at CCSS, and Vice Chair of the Instruction Community at NCSS.  Both of his parents were educators, and he believes that teaching is in his blood.  

Position Statement: 

I have traveled extensively, including studying in Mexico for a year with a Rotary Scholarship and participating in a study tour to China with the National Consortium for the Teaching about Asia.  Such experiences sensitize me to the importance of social studies education for our youth:  the future voters and leaders of our country.  The world has gotten much “smaller”.  Our students will be playing out their careers with citizens of other countries.  The skills they need to cooperate and compete effectively are best provided through social studies.  To a large degree, their livelihood -- and indeed our country’s future -- depends on the training they receive in our social studies classrooms.  Therefore, I would like to help the CCSS to expand its role of providing excellent professional development and networking to the grassroots level, while continuing to advocate for greater support for social studies education at the state level.