| | Leadership Team
The Leadership Team brings a broad range of leadership, management, consulting and education experience to CSP. Knowledgeable, experienced, and passionate, the group has come together with a single mission – to raise the academic achievement of Minnesota’s charter schools.
| | Al Fan - Executive Director
After 16 years at General Mills working in brand management, consumer research, and sales, Al launched a new career focused on bringing his strategic planning and results-driven collaborative approach to the area of social philanthropy, with a special interest in working with high-performing charter schools in Minnesota. Al’s work included leadership positions with Social Venture Partners, a venture philanthropy organization; Cookie Cart, a North Minneapolis non-profit providing employment skills training for youth; Hiawatha Leadership Academy; and KIPP Minnesota. He received his BA and MBA from UC Berkeley and is currently in the administrative licensure program at the University of Minnesota. | | | | |  | | Katie Barrett Kramer - Director of Academic Excellence/Leadership Development
Katie brings hands-on, academic skills along with a deep respect for school leaders, teachers and their students to the mission of developing and fostering high-achieving charter schools in Minnesota. Katie taught middle school in a New York City public school and was a corps member and leader for Teach for America in the Big Apple. For four years, she was also a leader of teacher professional development in a Minneapolis parochial school. Katie has an intimate knowledge of what it takes to achieve academic excellence in the inner city classroom. She was a founding board member of Hiawatha Leadership Academy, Minneapolis. A Boston College undergraduate, who also studied at the Sarbonne in Paris, Katie received her Masters in Educational Policy and Administration at the University of Minnesota and is presently a Ph.D. Candidate in the same program with her research focus on high-achieving charter schools.
| | | | |  | | Brian Sweeney - Director of External Affairs
For over twenty years, Brian has maintained a passion for and an ongoing professional commitment to educational choice and quality. In addition to founding (and co-founding) two schools in the Twin Cities that reflect both public and non-public school choice options, he has direct hands-on experience as a school director, has consulted with dozens of charter schools, and has served on boards of directors for numerous schools – from the pre-school to the college level. He was also a board member of the Wilder Foundation’s Achievement Plus program in St. Paul. Brian served as Director of Planning and Economic Development for the City of St. Paul where he headed up a Charters School Initiative for the Mayor. He was an Urban Studies major at The George Washington University, Washington, DC and did graduate work in public administration at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.
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| | Morgan Brown - Director of School Improvement
Morgan Brown has spent the last decade advocating for education reform, innovation, and charter schools at both the state and national levels. Morgan served at the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) as an Assistant Commissioner (2008-10) and the Director of School Choice and Innovation (2003-06). At MDE, he oversaw programs for school choice, special education policy, and American Indian education. Morgan also gained national experience from 2006-08 as the Assistant Deputy Secretary for Innovation and Improvement at the U.S. Department of Education. There, he led the federal agency’s programs and initiatives in such areas as school choice, teacher and principal quality, education technology, and history and arts education. Prior to 2003, Morgan had 11 years of experience in nonprofit and public policy positions, many of which focused on K-12 reform and outreach to families on education options. He received his B.A. from Carleton College and has completed fellowships at the Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota and the Claremont Institute in California.
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| | Leonel Leon - Partner School Analyst
Leonel is a trained Information technology technician with a background in database management, networking and much more. Leonel has specialized in charter school technology services over the past few years and has worked in a number of different schools including a few CSP Partner Schools. In addition to being a technology expert, Leonel is bilingual in Spanish and English, has administered the NWEA MAP Assessment and has experience training and coaching teachers in technology matters. Leonel will assist CSP Partner Schools in the implementation of TRIO and will help schools find better and more efficient ways to use data to drive instruction.
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