Caliber's Team

Jennifer Moses, Co-Founder and CEO
Jennifer Moses has spent the past decade in education, public policy and philanthropy after a career in investment banking. She is a founding Trustee of Absolute Return for Kids (ARK), one of the largest children’s charities in the UK, and co-founder of King Solomon Academy, an all-through state school in London. She is a partner at Ed-Mentor, LLC, a VC fund that invests in education technology startups. Prior to moving to California in late 2009,  she was a senior policy adviser to then British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. She was previously Chief Executive of the policy think tank Centreforum, following her banking career with Goldman Sachs. Jennifer is a graduate of Brown University and Harvard Business School. In addition to ARK, King Solomon and Caliber sits on the boards of the Brown University Corporation, Hillel International, and the KitchenSF, a San Francisco synagogue. She is married with three children. ​

Markus Mullarkey, COO
Markus Mullarkey comes to Caliber after a long and successful career in the private sector.  He spent over 15 years in marketing and leadership roles at successful blue-chip companies such as Proctor & Gamble, the Boston Consulting Group, and CNET Networks.  And he founded and grew his own mobile entertainment start-up for 8 years before joining Caliber.  
Markus has a passion for K-12 education, having consulted to EdTech companies in the sector and having served as a fundraising board member at his daughter’s school.  He also has a lifelong connection to the East Bay.  He grew up and went to school in Richmond and Albany and now lives with his wife and two daughters only a few miles from Caliber:Beta Academy. Markus graduated from Harvard College and went on to complete an MBA and a post-graduate Finance Fellowship from Harvard Business School. ​

Ric Zappa, CAO
Ric Zappa has been an educator for over 30 years, teaching in elementary, middle, high school,and community college. Under his leadership, KIPP Summit Academy received the Title 1 Academic Achievement, California Distinguished School, and the National Blue Ribbon Awards. Ric is considered a national leader and expert in Restorative Practices and Social-Emotional Learning.

Ryan York, Director of Academics
Ryan York started his career in education over ten years ago when he helped open a local non-profit after-school music and arts program serving as the executive director. After building a 6,000 sqft. facility and serving thousands of kids, Ryan transitioned into a full-time teaching position as a middle school math and science teacher. While teaching, Ryan also worked as a software developer and built a blended learning management software platform for his school that was quickly adopted by several other schools and facilitated some of the highest academic growth in the district. During Ryan's third year at Apollo, he also served as the school's math coaching supporting over 16 math teachers and helping the schools transition from the bottom 20% of schools in the state to the top 5%.

Ryan left Apollo to team up with RePublic Schools, creating and managing a network-wide computer science curriculum and teacher training program. After six months, Ryan was promoted to Chief Information Officer, joining the organization's senior leadership team and taking on the additional responsibilities of managing the organization's internal software development, data, and technology needs. After a year and a half, Ryan also took on the role of becoming a school principal for the next two years. During that time, Ryan extended the RePublic CS program to serve schools outside the RePublic network, growing from 300 students to 15,000 and reaching roughly 50 schools across the country. Ryan also received close to $600,000 to open a community Computer Science Center in Nashville, won the national Sally Ride Science & Deloitte award for STEM, and teamed up with the Carnegie Foundation to build a personalized learning curriculum and content management platform. Ryan now serves as Caliber's Director of Academics where he works alongside students, teachers, parents, and school leaders to develop and strengthen the organization's academic vision, curriculum, and instructional practices. 

Ernest Peterson,  K-5 School Leader at Caliber Beta Academy
Ernest Peterson joins the Caliber team with twenty years of experience in education as a teacher, district administrator, consultant, and principal.  Ernest has taught or lead in k-12 classrooms both in the United States and Internationally.  In his first principalship, Ernest was able to lead River Oaks, an Aspire Public School, in earning a “10” similar schools ranking (the highest possible in California) within the first three years.  As a high school principal for a private, international school, he was able to realize rising AP pass results and AP participation rates, while also adding innovative new programming, including computer science courses, presentations of learning, internships, project-based learning and a nationally-recognized robotics team.   Most recently, he served as principal at an Achievement First school in Hartford, CT that had more than double the percentage of students achieving proficiency on SBAC when compared to both local and comparison state schools. Ernest also worked  to dramatically reduce the number of suspensions.  Ernest is an alum of Teach for America and was a member of the founding New Leaders for New Schools cohort.  He is a proud graduate of Cal State East Bay where he studied Sociology, while later earning a Master’s degree in Elementary Education from CUNY- City College.

Ashlee Gutierrez,  6-8 School Leader at Caliber Beta Academy
Ashlee Gutierrez comes to Caliber Schools after several years of serving students across the East Bay. With experience in parochial, public, and now charter schools, Ashlee has a well-rounded skill set in K-8 education. Most recently, Ashlee was an administrator in Oakland Unified where her school experienced the highest percentage of growth in reading in the entire middle school network. Ashlee earned her degree in Sociology with an emphasis in Race, Class, and Gender from UC Davis. She is an alum of Teach For America and New Leaders for New Schools. She is currently studying school design and reform with RELAY Graduate School of Education. Ashlee is overjoyed to be working with Caliber as the School Leader for Caliber Beta Academy. 

Rachael Weingarten,  School Leader at Caliber ChangeMakers Academy
Mrs. Weingarten is absolutely thrilled about being the founding school Leader at Caliber ChangeMakers Academy in Vallejo.  She graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in Elementary Education and completed her masters in Urban Education and leadership from the University of Southern California.  Rachael began her teaching career in Tucson, Arizona, where she taught 2nd, 3rd, and 6th grade. She then taught 3rd and 4th grade in Detroit. She was the founding second and third grade teacher at KIPP Empower Academy (KEA) in Los Angeles, CA. After teaching she transitioned into being Dean of Instruction and Culture at KEA.  Rachael is a lifelong educator and is committed to her students, families, and the community of Vallejo. ​

Nicole Barker, Director of Special Education & Student Services Nicole Barker has been in education and teaching for thirteen years. She started her teaching career internationally and came back to and received a teaching credential in general education and special education. She has a bachelor's degree in Psychology and a master’s degree in Special Education from the University of Colorado.  Nicole has worked as a certified TEFL/TESL teacher, Special Educator, Administrator of Special Education, and RTI Coordinator for Denver Public Schools, a Special and General Education Professor for Loyola Marymount University and Director of Special Education and Student Services for Caliber Schools. ​

Nicole stands on the principles that every student deserves a supportive school administration along with empowered teachers and community.  This includes school staff who are enriched with relevant professional development, a positive school community, culturally responsive parent involvement and neighborhood community outreach. It is Nicole’s belief that these groups should work in unison towards increased targeted interventions to ensure students’ equal access to all education benefits, as well as, identification of students’ academic and social emotional learning needs. 

Rui Bao, Head of Data and New Schools
Rui Bao is thrilled to be part of the Caliber team.  Prior to  Caliber, Rui was a Senior Associate at McKinsey & Company, where she worked closely with clients on a variety of topics ranging from developing long-term strategy to improving and sustaining operational efficiency. During her time in New York , she co-founded and led Operation Employ, an effort to improve veteran unemployment locally through an 8-week mentorship program that impacted over 100 veterans. Prior to McKinsey, Rui has worked at United Way and America's Promise Alliance. Rui graduated from Yale with a degree in Ethics, Politics, and Economics.

Maggie Goldstein Cooper, Head of Talent + Communications
Maggie joined Caliber as the Head of Talent after teaching for 5 years with KIPP charter schools. After graduating from Dartmouth, Maggie began teaching middle school in Washington DC at KIPP DC: AIM Academy. She taught 5th and 6th grade reading and coached the first ever soccer team at her school. After three years at KIPP DC she moved back to the Bay Area to be on the founding team of the first KIPP High School in San Francisco: KIPP SF College Prep. She taught 9th grade English Literature, was the 9th Grade Level Chair, head of the family association, and completed the KIPP Schools Leadership Program (KSLP).  After leaving the classroom, Maggie spent time consulting for various companies and individuals in education (IDEO, Leadership + Design, KIPP Bay Area Schools, etc.)  before joining the team at Caliber. She is involved with everything related to recruiting and hiring, as well as taking part in organizational strategy, teacher sustainability, professional development, and all things communication. Maggie graduated from Dartmouth with a degree in Psychology and a minor in Education Policy; she was also on the Women's Varsity Soccer team. Maggie is married and has a baby girl named Ayla.

Chayla Gibson, Head of HR & Founding Team Member
Chayla has been with Caliber Schools as a founding team member since its inception in 2013.  She serves as the Head of HR and works on Community Engagement for New Schools. Although new to the field of education, she has over 15 years experience with various start up companies in the capacity of office management, marketing and operations, most recently with EducationSuperHighway. Born & raised in the Bay Area, she is excited to assist in building new schools and providing families in her own community CHOICE regarding their children's education. While raising her sons, she returned to school and received her Bachelor of Sciences degree in Business with a concentration in Marketing from The University of Phoenix. 

  Sally Baker, Operations & Facilities
Sally joined Caliber Schools in 2016 after working in both education and tech. She taught high school science with Teach For America in Charlotte, North Carolina before moving back to the Bay Area in 2012.  She worked for Uber Technologies in Operations and Marketing and left to help bring operational  efficiency to the education world. She is passionate about helping students and teachers reach their  fullest potential by helping to remove a lot of the obstacles that public schools face. She has her BA in  economics from Bucknell University and her MAT from University of North Carolina. 

Cormac Harkins, Data Analyst
Cormac is returning to Bay Area after spending a year back at his home in Boston where he earned a M.Ed in Educational Research, Measurement, and Evaluation from Boston College’s Lynch School of Education. Prior to graduate school, he worked in San Francisco at Breakthrough Collaborative as Manager of Research and Evaluation where he supported the internal evaluation process for Breakthrough’s students and teaching fellows across the country. Before moving to Bay Area, Cormac worked (and lived) at the Match Charter High School in Boston where he tutored students, coordinated the after-school program, and helped coach the basketball team. He graduated from Notre Dame with a degree in Anthropology.

Tracey Edwards, Accountant
Tracey brings over 20 years combined experience in the financial administration, organizational management and leadership.  Most recently, Tracey was Vendor Contract Manager and Treasury team member at Dropbox HQ in San Francisco. Prior to that, she worked as Administrator for a mini-mega church in Oakland where she served over 4 years as Administrator and in the Office of the Bishop. Tracey prides herself on being a person of quality with robust work ethic and core values of hard work, dedication and commitment.

Jenny Hinojosa, Talent Associate
Jenny joined Caliber Schools after almost 3 years of working with KIPP Bay Area schools as the Operations Associate. She earned her degree in Sociology and minor in Conservation and Resource Studies from UC Berkeley. She was born and raised in South Los Angeles, but has been in the Bay Area for 7 years. While working as a literacy tutor in an elementary school while in college, her passion for closing the education gap in communities of color like her own became even more important. She has worked as an AVID tutor for a middle school and facilitated math and writing groups for students who needed extra support in those subject. Transitioning to her operational role meant she would not be working with students directly, but she still managed to build meaningful relationships with them. Every year she would take a group of them  on a tour to her alma in order to encourage them and show them that going to a college or university of their choice was possible no matter their current circumstance. She is very excited to be serving the students and surrounding communities at Caliber!