Officers

Chair       
Keri Miksza     
Keri Miksza has two children who attend school in the Monroe County Community School Corporation. She was drawn into education advocacy back in 2014 when the ISTEP was clocking in at over 12 hours for an 8-year-old. She has been involved with the Indiana Coalition for Public Education, both in Monroe County and at the state level, since 2014. She was formerly secretary of the Rogers-Binford PTO and a Girl Scout troop leader to a dozen powerful girls. 

Vice Chair   
Open             

Treasurer
Pam Bessler
Pam has twins currently attending Bloomington High School South and is a dedicated volunteer for a variety of organizations such as Science Olympiad, Robotics, and Band Boosters. She became involved in public education advocacy during the first MCCSC Referendum campaign in 2010. Prior to moving to Bloomington in 2006, Pam worked as an engineer in the food industry for 19 years in a variety of operations and engineering roles both at plant facilities and corporate headquarters. Her husband Woodie is also an engineer and an active community volunteer in the area of promoting solar energy and sustainability.

Secretary
Nancy Goswami
Nancy Goswami is a Bloomington transplant from New Orleans.  She has lived in Bloomington since 2008, with her husband and their triplets.  She has been a member of ICPE-Monroe County since 2012.  She is also a MCCSC Foundation Board member and current member of the Bloomington Board of Realtors.

Board of Directors

Alice Hawkins
Alice Hawkins is a retired secondary teacher. After graduating from Purdue, she taught English at
Arsenal Technical High School (inner city), Crown Point Indiana (small town), Australia (suburb),
South Side High School (inner city), and Homestead High School (upper middle class). Alice earned
her Masters in Learning Disabilities from Univeristy of St. Francis. The crowning joy of her journey in
public education was teaching high school sudents with learning disabiities to read. Alice has four grandchildren who are attending MCCSC schools and one who graduated from Bloomington South (and is setting the world on fire at Purdue!) Alice believes that public education is the cornerstone of our democracy. 

Heather Hundley
Heather Hundley has two children that attend local public elementary and junior high schools in Bloomington. Heather is a biomedical researcher and educator at Indiana University School of Medicine-Bloomington. As a product of Midwestern public schools and a first generation college student, Heather values the role public education plays in providing opportunities to all children to grow and prosper. Heather is also involved in a number of engagement activites to introduce young children to science and the idea that people from all walks of life can be scientists!

Wendy Marencik
Wendy Marencik supports ICPE as life-long educator. She has served as a special educator, school psychologist, and clinical assistant professor with Indiana University’s School of Education. She believes that strong public schools are the foundation for a healthy democracy and pluralistic society.

Daniel O'Neill

Peg Smith 
Peg Smith is a career educator (BS in Elementary Education, Indiana University) who has taught in the Greater Chicago, Cleveland, Ohio, and Ann Arbor, Michigan areas. She completed her Masters in Educational Counseling from Wilmington University while she was teaching/mentoring critically ill children at the AI DuPont Children’s Hospital in Wilmington, Delaware. Peg and her husband moved to Bloomington in 2015. Together they have children Kelly (married to Zach Cunningham), and Kevin.    ​

Russ Skiba
Russ Skiba has lived in Bloomington since 1987 and has had three children in the public schools, two in MCCSC. As Professor Emeritus at Indiana University and former Director of the Equity Project at Indiana University, his research and advocacy has focused on the overuse of exclusionary discipline, particularly racial and ethnic disparities in suspension and expulsion. He was awarded the Push for Excellence Award by the Rainbow Coalition/Operation PUSH for his work on equity and social justice in education. Most recently he is a steering committee member and co-founder of the University Alliance for Racial Justice here at IU.
​

State-Level ICPE Board Representative (and President)

Cathy Fuentes-Rohwer
Cathy Fuentes-Rohwer is a public education advocate, MCCSC school board member, former chair of the Indiana Coalition for Public Education of Monroe County and now is president of the state-level Indiana Coalition for Public Education. She is also the mother of four children, three of whom have graduated from public schools and one who is in middle school. Cathy has advocated at the local and state level for adequate funding from the state; for keeping public money in public schools; for local, democratically elected oversight; and against high-stakes testing, which punishes schools and teachers that serve low-income populations, special education students, and English language learners. Her editorials about how state education policy is affecting our classrooms have appeared in newspapers across Indiana. She has given public testimony at State Board of Education and Joint State House/Senate Education Committees. Cathy has a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Michigan as well as a Master's in the Social Foundations of Education from Eastern Michigan University.