Julian Cohen
Julian Cohen is the founder of Shared Lane, a consulting services firm that supports schools and organizations as they prepare youth for the careers of their future. Julian began his career as a founding teacher at Central Park East Secondary School, a pioneer in the small schools movement. He became a teacher of teachers, adjuncting at Teachers College. After more than a decade in the classroom, Julian joined the Office of New Schools at the central New York City Department of Education, leading professional development for teams and principals who were planning and launching new small schools. Throughout his career at the district, he was part of several innovative projects: the pilot Innovation Zone to leverage new technologies for learning; the design of P-Tech, a grades 9-14 college and career model; the Expanded Success Initiative, a component of the Young Men’s Initiative to increase college access among Black and Latino young men; and a district-charter collaboration pilot to leverage best practices across sectors. Transitioning from secondary education to workforce training, Julian led a small team that developed a Technology Careers Exploration Program at Per Scholas, an IT training nonprofit, as high school pre-training. Julian holds certification from Columbia Business School’s Executive Leadership Program for Senior Nonprofit Leaders.
Shokry Eldaly
Bank Street Faculty
Dr. Shokry Eldaly is a faculty member in the Progressive Leadership Program and Museum Studies Program at Bank Street Graduate School and in the Principal Innovation Fellowship in the Bank Street Education Center. In his role, Dr. Eldaly facilitates leader development through approaches centered on transformative and reflective practice, action research, empirical approaches to efficacy, applied learning architecture, experiential learning, and the grounding of leadership in social and education justice outcomes. His research centers on the development of leaders through a focus on the concepts of efficacy appraisal, critical literacy, and transformative learning theory. He holds degrees from Hunter College, Goddard College, Bank Street Graduate School, and Columbia University, where he earned his Doctorate in Adult Learning and Leadership. Dr. Eldaly’s career in education began as a commitment to serving youth and communities impacted by the school-to-prison pipeline. Before joining Bank Street, Dr. Eldaly worked as a public school teacher and administrator in incarcerated school settings, a successful Turnaround and Renewal Coach, a school leader in the South Bronx, and deputy superintendent of Lilleth Patmore Schools, where he developed community approaches to clinical and therapeutic support. Additionally, Dr. Eldaly serves as faculty director at the Global Center for Executive Leadership and visiting faculty at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he teaches in the AEGIS (Adult Learning and Leadership) Doctoral program.
Nancy Mann
Bank Street Faculty
Nancy Mann has over three decades of school leadership in urban education. She began teaching at Central Park East Secondary School, a school known for its focus on performance assessment and a restructured school day. She was a cofounder of Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School in the East Tremont section of the Bronx in 1994, one of the first small schools in the Bronx, where she served as principal from 2002-14. From 2015-18, she was the deputy superintendent for a New York City Department of Education citywide district of performance assessment schools. Her work with competency-based leadership programs includes the Summer Principals Academy at Teachers College, and the P20 program at Bank Street Graduate School in collaboration with Rochester and Yonkers districts. She currently teaches fieldwork/advisement in the School District Leadership program at Bank Street Graduate School. She continues to be a mentor to educators and principals through her work in New York City and her work with the Institute for Student Achievement.
Moses Ojeda
Principal Facilitator
Moses Ojeda has been an educator for the past 26 years. He is a graduate of Adelphi University, where he earned a master’s degree in Educational Leadership and Technology. Moses is a lifelong learner and holds the various Information Technology certifications. Over the years, his accomplishments and efforts have not gone unrecognized. Moses has been instrumental in pioneering CTE programs such as cyber security, drone engineering, and medical assisting. Moses attended Thomas A. Edison CTE High School (Edison) as a student and is a product of Career & Technical Education (CTE). Upon graduating, Moses enrolled in a five-year program with the New York City Department of Education to prepare him to become a CTE instructor. In 1998, he returned to his alma mater as a technology instructor until 2008, when he became the department head of CTE, overseeing 12 CTE programs. In 2012, Moses became the principal of Edison and was persistent in implementing an authentic college and career readiness experience through his vision of developing students with the academic rigor and career and technical education skills needed to become the 21st-century leaders of the future.
Kristin Cahill
Principal Facilitator
Kristin Cahill is the founding principal of HERO High School, a P-Tech High School in the South Bronx focusing on careers in healthcare, nonprofit management, and education. She began her career in the Oakland Unified School District as an English teacher, literacy coach, and co-director of a career academy. After returning to her native New York City, she supported new, small high schools in the Bronx through the National Academy for Excellent Teaching at Teachers College. Cahill also has experience in workforce, supervising the Jefferson Houses Jobs-Plus program in East Harlem—a place-based employment program for residents of public housing—and managing the implementation of innovative employment programs nationally as a research associate for MDRC, working in partnership with the New York City Mayor’s Office. Cahill is a graduate of the New York City Leadership Academy. She earned her MPA. with a specialization in Public Policy from the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University and her BA with highest honors in English Literature at the University of California at Berkeley.
Liliana Polo
Coach
Liliana Polo has over 20 years of experience as an educator, focusing her career on designing learning systems with and for young people whom our systems have not served well. With a commitment to partnerships as a way to transform education, Liliana was the founding principal of West Brooklyn Community High School, an early community school serving youth ages 16-20—in partnership with Good Shepherd Services—in the same neighborhood where she was born and raised. Through the Leadership Academy, Liliana served as vice president of school leadership support, coaching, designing, and facilitating professional development for district- and school-level leaders with their teams across the country. Liliana also served as the chief executive officer of Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow (OBT), one of New York City’s largest youth education and workforce development nonprofits. Liliana is currently a technical advisor with FHI 360, designing professional learning for over 100 districts as part of the District Summer Learning Network, and coaching districts to implement evidence-based practices in order to transform summer learning. Liliana is also an executive coach with Latinos for Education and the Leadership Academy, and serves on the Boards of Directors for the Great Oaks Foundation, Building 21, Malverne Afterschool Center, and Latina Moms Connect. Liliana has a Doctorate in Education Leadership from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a BA/MAT from Brown University.
Larry Woodbridge
Coach
Larry Woodbridge began his career in education as a social studies teacher at the McBurney School in 1982, where he also directed the school play. In 1998, he was selected to open the Community School at MS 142 and subsequently, in 2003, became the first principal of the Secondary School for Law at John Jay High School (SSL). At SSL, Larry initiated a dedicated law-related curriculum, an expansion of Readers and Writers Workshop to the high school level, community partnerships that led to enhanced college counseling and social services, and building-wide AP classes. He also mentored aspiring principals for the Leadership Academy. In 2010, Larry left SSL to become one of the inaugural group of facilitators for the Leaders in Education Apprenticeship Program (LEAP), the first in-house principal preparation program developed by the New York City Department of Education. From 2013-21, he led the principal preparation program team in the Office of Leadership and ultimately became the office’s senior executive director. Larry has been a Klingenstein Fellow and a Cahn Fellow at Teachers College, Columbia University.
