Karen Colaric

Karen has been an educator since 1980 and joined Park Day in 1984. During her tenure at Park, Karen has taught second through fourth grades before taking the Lower School Director position in 2005. Park Day’s progressive philosophy and political values have been a perfect match for Karen, who enjoys experimenting with and creating curriculum and grappling with issues related to school leadership and social justice. Karen migrated to California to put herself through school at SFSU, earning both her BA in liberal studies and completing post-graduate credential work. Karen has published Creating the Bedroom of Your Dreams in the California Mathematics Council Communicator in June, 2002, and was a contributing author to the Great Explorations in Math and Science guide, Math on the Menu: Real Life Problem Solving. She has presented several workshops for Oakland public school teachers and was the Keynote speaker for a seminar for California Subject Matter Projects, UCB in 2007 titled Educating for Sustainability: Principles and Projects that Build Ecological Literacy. In 2009, Karen presented Social Justice in Action: Proof and Practice at the Progressive Educators Network conference in Washington, DC. In 2011 she presented SDA: Support, Development and Assessment of Teachers at PEN. In 2004, Karen was awarded the Fulbright Memorial Fund and traveled to Japan with a contingent of 200 American teachers. She also had the privilege of leading a group of fifteen BHS students to Costa Rica, to take part in sustainability work through Ecology Project International. Recently, Karen attended the Project Zero Institute at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she furthered her expertise in the Teaching for Understanding model in practice at Park Day.