About
About The Coalition
A Not-for-Profit Organization, with 501(c)3 status pending.
ESC People
Rita Ferrandino, Executive Director
Arc Capital Development Co-Founder and Principal Rita Ferrandino’s career highlights include selling over $100 million of products to the higher education and K-12 markets, leading the acquisition effort for more than 50 titles, and forming revenue-producing alliances with over a dozen of the industry's largest publishers and distributors. Over the last year, in conjunction with Carmen Group, Inc., Rita co-sponsored the first Congressional Briefing on Science education, and has successfully advocated for legislative changes in elementary education, including increased federal funding for K-12 science education in the America COMPETES Act, and the adoption of an amendment to the FY 2008 Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, Education Appropriations bill to ensure that the NAEP 2009 Science Test includes extensive and explicit to scientific inquiry.
www.arccd.com
Please read a welcome letter from Rita here...
Leigh Melander, Ph.D., Community Outreach Director
Leigh has served in management and consulting capacities for over fifteen years for over 70 nonprofit and corporate clients in visioning, strategic planning, consortium building, public relations, marketing, and development. As an educator, Leigh has served as an artist in residence and taught conflict resolution in public schools around the US, worked with the Annenberg Center for Arts in Education in one of the nation's first lateral learning training programs with preschool and elementary school teachers, and served as the program director of the University of California Santa Barbara's MultiCultural Center. She is the founding CEO of The Imaginal Institute, a conduit for imagining: celebrating and supporting the leap between ideas and action through conferences, online education, and publishing. She has a doctorate in cultural mythology and psychology, and is the author of the upcoming book, Can You See It? Why Imagination Matters.
www.imaginalinstitute.com
ESC Academic Advisory Board
The nation's leading educators and theorists on K-12 inquiry-based science, serving as advisors to the Elementary Science Coalition
Members of the Advisory Board...
Carmen Group, Inc.
Carmen Group is one of the most dynamic and successful corps of education lobbyists in Washington. In 30 years of proven lobbying success for clients, Carmen Group has created and executed programs designed to merge the priority areas of educational institutions with national initiatives and has been successful in advancing both programmatic and bricks and mortar federal funding. Employing a unique and proven business process has increased the success ratio for clients and sets Carmen Group apart from other firms in terms of innovation, execution and accountability.
www.carmengroup.com
ESC Organizational By-Laws
Please click the link below to download a copy of the Elementary Science Coalition By-Laws.
ESC Membership Information
The Elementary Science Coalition is a member-based organization.
This Coalition will be as strong as its membership, and welcomes queries from organizations and individuals in education, publishing, and science and technology industries. Please click the link below to download a membership application. Become a part of the science revolution!
If you would like to become involved as a sponsor or a member of the Elementary Science Coalition, please contact Rita Ferrandino at rita@arccd.com or (941) 921-1663.
The Elementary Science Coalition is a select group of educators, educational publishing companies, and corporations with a vested interest in a strong scientific workforce, 
