Elyse is Director of Operations for Five Keys Charter Schools, coordinating courses, teachers and students at all locations. She has been the Director of Operations since ______? ...

Margo Perin was writer-in-residence at San Francisco County Jails from 2001 to 2007, and taught English, American Literature, and Ethnic Literature at Five Keys in 2005. She recently returned to teach full-time at Five Keys with a focus on Seeking Safety for women with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Substance Abuse; Restorative Justice; and English.

In 2006, Margo published Only the Dead Can Kill: Stories from Jail (book and CD) with a grant from the Creative Work Fund, which has become mandatory reading for future correctional, parole, and police officers and social workers and educators in California State University East Bay's Criminal Justice Administration. The book has been widely distributed in the Bay Area among educators, social workers, and people living and working in the criminal justice system.

Margo is founder and director of Write & Rise (www.writeandrise.com), a restorative justice through the arts project fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts 501(c)(3). Write & Rise provides free writing and publishing programs for adults and youth working towards freedom from incarceration in jail and prison, for the formerly incarcerated upon reentering society, and for at-risk youth at group homes and substance treatment centers. Margo's work, as well as her childhood being raised by a criminal father on the run, was profiled in The San Francisco Chronicle Sunday Magazine in April 2006, and in O Magazine in January 2008. Along with formerly incarcerated writers, Margo presents quarterly readings at Bay Area venues.

Margo is also contributing editor of How I Learned to Cook and Other Writings on Complex Mother-Daughter Relationships (Tarcher-Penguin 2004) and author of two memoirs Criminals Intent and The Body Geographic, both of which were funded by San Francisco Arts Commission Cultural Equity Grants. She is currently working on a performance Is This Me? with director Carlos Aguirre of Felonious. Her work has been widely profiled in print and radio/TV media, including The Washington Post, Dallas Morning News, ElleGirl, Seventeen, Mexico's El Petit Journal, KRON4 TV, KALW, KPFA, and NPR Talk of the Nation.

Meredith is one of the founding teachers of the school -- coming to Five Keys by way of Berkeley High School and Mexico City among other pursuits. A Social Sciences teacher, she is known for getting fired up about the electoral process and emerging leaders like Kevin Johnson and Cory Booker. Currently on a leave of absence, she continues to telecommute, heading up the Curriculum Committee which is creating a school-wide curriculum to address the larger restorative justice mission of the school.

Born and raised in San Francisco, Richard attended Abraham Lincoln High School and received an Associate Degree from City College of San Francisco. He later attended State University of New York at Potsdam, where he received his B.A. and went on to do Post Graduate work at Syracuse University.

Married with two children, Richard retired from public school teaching in northern New York after nearly 30 years. He has been teaching at Five Keys since 2007. Richard enjoys out-of-door activities in his spare time.

Michael Foster is 5 Keys Life Skills Instructor.

Meredith is one of the founding teachers of the school -- coming to Five Keys by way of Berkeley High School and Mexico City among other pursuits. A Social Sciences teacher, she is known for getting fired up about the electoral process and emerging leaders like Kevin Johnson and Cory Booker. Currently on a leave of absence, she continues to telecommute, heading up the Curriculum Committee which is creating a school-wide curriculum to address the larger restorative justice mission of the school.

Marlon Altan

Anthony Pereira ...

Dana Rivers

Kathy Rose ...

Carl Alexander has been teaching computer skills to students at Five Keys since 2008. He has over 30 years of experience in the Information and Technology sector having worked in the corporate sector with Sprint, Kaiser Permanente, Visa International, Bank of America, San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, and in the public sector with Alameda County Information Services Department.

Mr. Alexander is also Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of Jireh Technologies, having recently completed the engineering & design of a state-of-the art Technology Learning Center at the True Hope Church. The Center is one of the first broadband wireless community distance learning/e-learning technology centers in the San Francisco Bay Area. Ranked among the top 5% of IT Engineers in the country, Mr. Alexander has extensive experience in network design and support of both WAN/MAN/LAN topology infrastructure, along with broadband wireless network administration & security.

Lia Altan

'Amir' is Five Keys' Poet Extraordinaire bringing words to life and inspiring students to do the same.

Darrow is a veteran website developer with over fifteen years experience in desktop publishing and multimedia production. She teaches computer skills at Five Keys and provides IT services for classrooms and offices. Darrow is the school's website developer and she particularly enjoys teaching students how to create and publish their own independent journalism, artwork, and multimedia online. She is the mother of a nine year old son and is also studying law part-time. She plans to take the Bar Exam in 2013.