Curriculum

Teachers and Staff

(pictured L to R:) Laura Coleman, Dean Conway, Marsha Feinberg, Robert Greene, Sally Baker, Cindy Laba, Mervan Osborne

Cindy Laba, Founder and Head of School
For the past 20 years Cindy Laba has devoted her professional life to the education and development of young people. She started by doing prevention work with middle and high school age students from the D Street Public Housing Development and the Boys & Girls Club in South Boston. Upon completing a Masters Degree in Social Work, she worked with emotionally disturbed adolescents who lived at Harbor Schools in Newburyport. Cindy spent most of her career at City Year, one of America's leading national service programs, where she developed and implemented enterprise-wide recruitment, fundraising, and intranet systems. When she was named a Vice President, she turned her focus to development and producing major national events both in the US and South Africa. In 2004 - 2005 she served as Vice President of City on a Hill Charter School in Boston and is now Founder and Head of School of Beacon Academy.

Marsha Feinberg, Founding Chair Emerita, Board of Trustees; Director of Strategic Planning & Development
Marsha Feinberg is a social entrepreneur and consultant who has been active in urban youth programs for over 25 years. Marsha has played a major role in helping launch many leading non-profits by providing strategic planning, fundraising and community building expertise. She founded and directed the JFK Library Corps in 1983, was the Founding Chair of the Board of Citizen Schools in 1998 and served for 10 years in that role, growing Citizen Schools from a Boston based program to a national network of after school programs. Marsha worked at City Year during its early years and five years ago helped launch the Clinton Democracy Fellows Program in South Africa. A graduate of Columbia Business School, Marsha serves as a member of a number of non-profit boards of trustees, including the New England Board of Directors of Facing History and Ourselves.

Sally Baker, Director of Alumni and Community Service Learning
Sally Baker is a graduate of Smith College, with an Ed.M. from Tufts University. After teaching middle school English and social studies in Newton, she worked at The Park School in Brookline. Over the course of 25 years at Park, she was deeply involved in the development of community service learning. In addition to her administrative roles as Assistant Head, she also coached girls' basketball and served as a seventh grade advisor. Her interests also include gardening, swimming, quilting, and participating in local politics.

Laura Coleman, Director of Volunteers & Co-Curricular Activities
Laura organized and manages Beacon's tutoring, mentoring and co-curricular programs and recruits volunteers to participate in Beacon's co-curricular activities. Laura comes to Beacon most recently from the marketing and service management departments at Harvard Business School, where she conducted primary research and wrote cases. Prior to her work with Harvard, Laura spent 12 years as a marketing and retailing executive with Clairol, Macy's New York and May Department Stores. Laura earned her BA in international studies from Barnard College and an MBA from Columbia Business School in marketing. Laura is currently Parent Co-Chair for Community Service in the upper school at Winsor and serves on the Leadership Council with Horizons for Homeless Children.

Dean Conway, English Teacher
During 17 years at The Park School in Brookline, Dean taught English and Latin and acted as Head of the Upper School. He left Park to work as State Coach and Director of Coaching for the Massachusetts Youth Soccer Association for six years, and then gravitated back to teaching. Inspired by Beacon's mission and philosophy, Dean helped design this school during the planning phase and now is our full time English Teacher.

Robert Greene, Director of Secondary School Counseling & Math Teacher
As the Director of Admissions at Belmont Hill, Robert was an outspoken advocate among independent school leaders for better preparation of urban students to be competitive candidates for private schools. Realizing that there were no organizations doing this important work. Robert helped start Beacon and with Marsha worked as Co-Chair of the Board. Robert has garnered more than twelve years' experience in private school education, having taught middle and high school mathematics at The Fessenden School, The Winsor School, and The Steppingstone Foundation. Aside from admission and teaching, he has extensive experience in curriculum development, coaching, advising, and youth leadership development. Robert is a graduate of Brown University and Harvard Graduate School of Education. In addition to the work he does at Beacon Academy, Robert is the principal at RL Greene and company, an educational consulting firm.

Mervan Osborne, Dean of Students
Mervan Osborne, Dean of Students, comes to Beacon Academy after spending eleven years at The Buckingham Browne and Nichols School, where he taught English and Drama, coached several sports and served as an admissions officer. During his first 3 years at BB&N, Mervan also served as resident director of A Better Chance House in Winchester, MA. Prior to coming to BB&N, he spent two years as a member of the inaugural 1990 Teach for America corps in Compton, CA. Mervan has a passion for education, and for filmmaking. For the past three summers, he has taught filmmaking at the Shady Hill School, at the Steppingstone Foundation and the Creative Arts at Park program. Mervan was born in London and moved to New York City when he was eleven years old. After several years of public schools in the Bronx and in Lower Manhattan, he received a scholarship to attend St. George's School in Newport, RI. He earned his B.A. at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut and his M.F.A. at Boston University.