About Us

Educational Consultant, National Parent Education and Engagement Model Developer, Founder of Institutionalized Equity LLC.

Michele's experience as a K-12 gifted coordinator in school districts across Northeastern Ohio led her to uncover the single most important factor affecting student achievement, no matter their ethnicity or economic status: Parent engagement and empowerment.

She's worked in all types of districts: small-town, suburban, and urban, and in areas with both high and low student poverty rates. She's been a substitute teacher, gifted intervention specialist, gifted coordinator, curriculum consultant, and pilot program developer.

Her role as an educator and her love of research brought some disappointing, even frightening, statistics to her attention. Student achievement and cognitive ability have been and are declining in the U.S. and this is a contributing factor to a host of issues that we see the effects of today. While talking with parents in all the districts she served, she recognized that parents want their children to succeed, they just don't have the information they need to help their children realize their full potential. Based on this identified need, Michele began to focus her attention on solving this problem. As she learned more and more about child development, the science of learning, and parenting, she realized that even though her daughter had attended a top-tier university, there was so much more she should have known when she was raising her. 

Her efforts over the past 10 years to authentically engage parents in their child's development and learning led to the creation of the National Parent Education and Engagement Model. Michele hopes that the information presented in The Model and its associated resources will help parents, teachers, and district leaders work together to better support and encourage students on their path to becoming successful independent learners and citizens.

Michele is passionate about telling others what she has learned and will keep working, creating resources to support the development of The Model, writing, and making connections until Parent Engagement becomes an integral component of our education structure.   

Director of Communications, Institutionalized Equity, LLC

Sarah joined forces with Michele and Institutionalized Equity in 2018. She believes, like Michele, that the engagement and empowerment of parents is THE critical component that is missing in our education system. The system needs a reboot, and the events of 2020 have brewed the storm that just might bring about this real change. Sarah also believes in the power of clear and simple communication to educate and inspire people. 

Sarah chose the non-profit path in college and started her career in New York City at The Advertising Council, where she held a variety of roles over 10 years. She worked on many national public service campaigns covering a range of issues from wildfire prevention, keeping oceans clean, adoption from foster care to college preparedness, early childhood education, and inspiring invention in kids. 

With the birth of their son, Sarah and her husband made the easy decision to move back to Ohio. After a few years “off” while their son was very young, she found work she loved with a former Ad Council client, The National Inventors Hall of Fame. She developed, researched, curated objects, and wrote museum displays and developed interactive exhibits on everything from the progress of camera technology, to character trademarks, to profiles of some inspiring inductees including personal favorites Lewis Latimer, Leroy Grumman, Mary Engle Pennington and Maxime Faget.     

One of the great benefits of working part-time while her son was in elementary school was room parenting!  It was the time that Sarah spent with these kids at classroom parties and helping out during art classes that reminded her that THIS is where you can really make a difference. Every kid has a world of opportunities and an open and unbiased mind to achieve them, but they need the active guidance and support of their school teachers, and their lifelong teachers: their parents or caregivers. 

Sarah graduated with a degree in Advertising from Kent State University. She now lives in Shaker Heights with her husband, 12-year-old son, and their new best friend, Tesla the dog.