The Rise Up! Board
The Foundation is volunteer run. We are a diverse group of devoted parents, guardians, and community members in Marin City, Sausalito and beyond. We listen to feedback from our community, the school administration and other local non-profit organizations to help us raise funds for our school and young scholars.
Kieran Culligan, President
Kieran has two children at MLK Academy: one in K and one in 2nd grade. Kieran works in the technology field and is also passionate about making our community more walk and bike friendly for adults and children alike.
Renee,,
Vice President
Danelle Threatt, Co-Treasurer
Danelle Threatt is a fifth generation Marin City descendent of many MLK alumni and an MLK alumnus herself.
In 2019, her mother took on guardianship of her two younger cousins who began their MLK journeys in January 2020. By April 2020, Danelle dove headfirst into educational and community service. Amidst the pandemic, and the mandates of the state ordered integration order that required BMLK merge with the former Willow Creek School, Danelle, alongside Claudine Alameda and Alida Lasker, founded Rise Up! 94965 Foundation to support the students in our community amidst a fraught and fractured political landscape.
Danelle has been active in Arts+ Scholars, Growth Circles and represented Rise Up! on the Sausalito Marin City School District Budget Advisory Committee. Danelle has liaised with, Bridge The Gap, Hannah Freedom School, Play Marin, the Marin City Library and other community stakeholders. Danelle is also a founding member of MLK Students First - an advocacy organization that seeks to preserve student facing and instructional roles in the face of budget cuts and improper distribution of funds.
Michael McSunas,,
Secretary
Michael is the father of two current students (1st and 3rd) who absolutely love their school community. Michael’s professional experience has ranged from substitute teaching math, to biopharmaceutical process engineering, to directing a cell-cultivated meat process-development facility, to now helping manage his wife's local business. He is interested in doing good by seeking to understand people and the world we inhabit together. Michael lives in a pole house in Marin City where he enjoys hanging out with and learning the neighborhood history from the good friends he has made since he moved there in 2016.
Ellen Franz,,
Board Member
Ellen Franz remains actively involved in the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Academy learning community after 22 years teaching in the Sausalito Marin City School District, where she taught both elementary grades and TK-8 visual art. She previously worked in teacher professional development in the Vallejo City Unified School District, the CA Arts Project, and as a Teacher Scholar within the Carnegie K-12/Teacher Educator program. She was a National Board Certified Teacher in Early Childhood Education.
Currently, during school day afternoons, she can most often be found in the Dr. MLK Academy music room learning to play the steel pan drums alongside middle schoolers in their first year of a newly-restored music program; she also continues her long-standing practice of attending SMCSD Board meetings to advocate in the interests of students’ educational lives, and enjoys following students’ outside-of-school activities (most recently, dance concerts and football games).