Coney Island Prep needs board members

Speaking of No Excuses charter schools, I had the pleasure of speaking with Jacob Mnookin recently.  He's a Middlebury, Teach for America and Princeton alum who is preparing to open a just such a school in Coney Island in the fall of 2009.  He needs 4-6 motivated people to join his board in the near future, so if you're interested, please email him directly at jmnookin@buildingexcellentschools.org <mailto:jmnookin@buildingexcellentschools.org> .  Here's an email from him with more details:

I am working to submit an application to  SUNY to open a No Excuses public charter school, Coney Island Prep, serving students in the Coney Island community in grades 5-12.  I am currently in a Fellowship with Building Excellent  Schools, a national non-profit that works to train leaders to open and run  high quality urban charter schools.  Through this Fellowship, I have had over 300 hours of professional development trainings on designing and operating charter schools.  Additionally, the Fellowship has afforded me the unique opportunity to visit over 15 high-performing public charter schools including Williamsburg Prep, KIPP Bronx, KIPP Team, Roxbury Prep,  Amistad Academy, and Northstar Academy, and speak with those school leaders in order to incorporate the best practices from those schools into the educational design of Coney Island Prep.   
  
I was an English and Political Science major at Middlebury College, and upon graduation I joined Teach For America and taught high school English for three years in Newark, NJ.  After teaching, I returned to school and recently completed both my Masters in Public Affairs and Urban & Regional Planning from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and  International Affairs at Princeton University.   
 
 I am currently looking to put together a  founding board of like-minded people who bring a diverse skill-set to the founding team.  If anyone is interested in learning more about joining the founding board, please contact me at jmnookin@buildingexcellentschools.org.