Board of Directors

​

Bruce Bemis is a visual artist living and working in the South End. As a member of the South End community he supports art initiatives at Blackstone Elementary School by coordinating projects and facilitating partnerships in art.  His concern is to see that the arts again become integral to the learning experience of public school children.

​

Robin Hanley lives in the South End and is an ESL teacher in the Refugee and Immigrant Services Program at JVS.  For 25 years Robin served as director of development for some of Boston’s premiere performing arts organizations.  She remains involved in the local arts community as a consultant, board member and yarn bomber.

​

Michael McDermott is an at Dain, Torpy, Le Ray, Wiest & Garner, P.C., a commercial real estate law firm in Boston. He assists developers, landlords, and commercial owners to resolve disputes concerning land use, environmental, condominium, insurance, and regulatory compliance. Mike lives in the South End with his wife, Melanie, who is a Kindergarten teacher at Blackstone Elementary. Together, they are committed to seeing the school become a neighborhood anchor as a resource to all children and families in the community.

​

​Julia Perlowski is a K-12 United States urban school educator and educational consultant since 2006. Currently certified in theater and English, she teaches in Boston Public Schools serving students and teachers in the areas of theater, literacy and oracy. Julia is active in the Shakespeare world in the US and abroad. She runs the Northeast Shakespeare Competition from Boston for the English Speaking Union. She was a fellow for the Folger’s Teaching Shakespeare Institute (2006) and for the UK GLOBES’s Teaching Shakespeare Through Performance Institute (2009). In addition to training teachers across the US, Julia has worked in St. Lucia, Sweden, Poland, Pakistan and India with Shakespeare and with Boalian devising methods to get communities to talk with one another, solve communal challenges and explore personal and site specific identities. 

 

Dave Russek, the Board Treasurer, is Vice President, Supplier Management within Enterprise Infrastructure, a division of Fidelity Investments.  He received his bachelor’s degree in Accounting from Northeastern University.  David lives in the South End.

 

William A. Wolff, the Board President, is the Site Team Leader for Generations Incorporated at The Blackstone School.  He leads a group of older adult volunteers who work with teachers and children in Kindergarten through third grade to improve the literacy skills of the children.  Bill and his wife live in Boston’s South End.