Team Biographies

Dr. Joni Samples
Chief Academic Officer
Dr. Joni Samples is the new Chief Academic Officer of Family Friendly Schools. Dr. Joni comes with an impressive background combining academic credentials with practical service as a lifelong educator. She has served as a superintendent of schools, special education administrator, curriculum and instruction director, CEO for early childhood, coordinator of career and technical programs, and a teacher for regular and special education, as well as university teaching programs.

Dr. Joni is also a popular keynote speaker and trainer in the area of family engagement. She has authored books about parent involvement in the education of their children. Her interest in parent involvement began with her four children-twin sons James and Christopher, and daughters Jennifer and Carolyn. The kids provided her daily learning "ahas" that she translated into a weekly newspaper column. An article about learning fractions came from measuring ingredients to make muffins with Christopher. James' science fair project about rat reproduction resulted in several articles on how to develop a scientific hypothesis and test it out.The popularity of the newspaper column led to Dr. Joni's first book, Taking the Guesswork out of School Success. This book stresses the importance of parent involvement and shows schools and parents how they can help each other improve their child's learning. For more info on Dr. Joni, click here...

Donald J. Converse, MA
Educational Development Director
An instructor and trainer in the education market, Don has been an entrepreneur, public speaker, and teacher. With degrees in marketing, business management and organizational leadership, Don was a Business Instructor at FCC College of San Diego, the Senior Regional Customer Service Director at IKON Office, and the past President of Signature III, Inc. Don is also Co-Chairman of Fundraising for his local Habitat for Humanity.  He has edited several books and authored the white paper - The Customer Service Perspective of the Information Technology Professional.

Now in his role at FFS as Educational Development Director, Don assists schools and districts in choosing the family engagement developmental programs that will maximize the results of their efforts and minimize the learning curve for implementation. A true professional, Don nevertheless sets people at ease with his humor, quick thinking, and eye for ways to achieve improvement in learning.

Larry Van Hoose
Director of Operations
Joining Family Friendly Schools in early 2009, Larry brings an extensive background in sales, marketing, research, and operations management in both the aerospace and industrial manufacturing sector. Larry fills the gaps in strategic marketing, creative design, technology, operations, data analysis and communications.

After 15 years of doing business in the hectic metropolitan area of Phoenix, Arizona, Larry packed up the family and moved to the beautiful and much more serene environs of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Southwestern Virginia. He now lives with his beautiful wife and four children in Galax, Virginia, just a stone's throw from the Blue Ridge Parkway and the North Carolina border.

Karen Hackett-Villalobos
Certified Family Engagement Specialist
In addition to her current responsibilities as an FFS Certified Trainer and Coach, Karen is a Doctoral student at the University of Pacific. She has served as the Tri-County (Sutter, Colusa and Yuba Counties) BTSA Induction Program Director since 2001. In this role, Karen has worked with thousands of teachers delivering research-based professional development through an accredited licensure program. Prior to this position Karen was the Superintendent/Principal at Lake School in Glenn County for three years and has worked at the primary school level teaching since 1995.

Karen also co-authored and was awarded an Improving Teacher Quality Grant that focused on job-embedded professional development for teachers. She is currently working as adjunct faculty for Brandman (Chapman) University instructing future administrators in democratic education and supervision and assessment.

Elizabeth Holiday Morgan
Certified Family Engagement Specialist
Elizabeth Holiday Morgan is a Family Friendly Schools' Certified Family Engagement Specialist and a talented and engaging Distance Coach.  

Elizabeth is a Sacramento, California native who not serves as a Family Engagement Trainer and Coach for FFS, but also as an adjunct professor for California’s largest community college district, Los Rios Community Colleges.  She teaches courses in education and sociology where she pulls upon her vast knowledge and experience of the inner-working of our nation's urban schools.  Prior to this, Elizabeth served as a school administrator at St. HOPE Public School 7, a K-8 urban charter elementary school.  She worked regularly with parents and educators to help create empowering solutions to life-impacting problems within children’s lives. 

Elizabeth graduated among the top of her class from Harvard University with a masters in education.  She also holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from Xavier University of Louisiana.

Nicholas S. D'Amico
Certified Family Engagement Specialist
Nicholas S. D'Amico is a certified trainer and distance coach with FFS. He is also an educator with classroom teaching and administrative experience at all three levels of education; elementary, secondary, and higher education. He has worked most closely with parents, teachers, and administrators to raise the level of student achievement of all students, with a particular focus on the needs of English Language Learners and their parents and teachers. From 1997-2000 he distinguished himself as a Visiting Educator with the Professional Development Unit at the California Dept. of Education in Sacramento, where he served as the state administrator and consultant for California's Bilingual Teacher Training Programs.

Nick holds a Masters Degree in Latin American Studies and a Doctorate in Educational Administration and Policy Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles.. 

Dr. Christine Rowe
Grant Advisor

Dr. Christine Rowe offers you over 20 years' success supporting public and non-profit agencies to better serve their clients through an integrated approach to planning and organizational development, needs assessment, grant procurement, program design and evaluation. Dr Rowe has served as a resource development consultant, coach and evaluator with hundreds of clients including K-12 districts and IHEs (colleges and universities), non-profits, social services and educational programs. As an educator, her students have ranged from multilingual families with preschoolers through K-14 and adult students. As a program administrator, she has expertise with English learners, Bilingual Education, Family Literacy and Migrant Family Liaison programs.

Christine will work with you to secure grant funding to transform your vision into a successfully implemented project. We begin by assessing your chances of getting the grant and meeting its requirements. With your decision to move forward, we identify key partners, target population and best practice models. We will develop a clear timeline to ensure that your grant proposal is competently completed and delivered. We will design an evaluation that can be used for multiple purposes as part of the day-to-day management of a program to support your quest to do the best job possible. For more info visit: Los Padres Consulting.com.

Monique Martineau
FFS Distance Coach
Monique brings to FFS, expertise in well-being and stress management as an educator and coach. She has been a corporate wellness coach since 2005 and a stress management coach since 2001. Working with best-selling author and mind-body physician Deepak Chopra in 1994 instigated her role as an educator….unless you count teaching windsurfing and sailing in the mid-80s as stress relief for university students in San Diego!

A Zen teacher drew Monique to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2001 for ongoing intensive studies. She has infused his and best-selling author Eckhart Tolle’s wisdom into her work. Twenty years in personal and professional development is rounded out with eight years in healthcare, 15 years in business development, and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration.

Keynote and workshop clients include Cisco, NASA, American Society for Training and Development, San Diego Chamber of Commerce, and One World Children’s Fund. Coaching clients include large organizations (who prefer anonymity), Heald College, and individuals from Cisco, HP, Intuit, as well as small business owners and entrepreneurs.

A Cisco program committee member said, “Monique was the best of our (12) keynotes this year.” A business owner from another talk described her as “…masterfully navigating…empowering participants to make wise informed choices.”

Beverly Staley, MS
Certified Family Engagement Specialist & Distance Coach
Beverly’s background includes counseling, coaching and mentoring in such challenging settings as Los Angeles Unified School District, Family Service of Long Beach, Straight Talk, Inc., and Women Helping Women, Costa Mesa, CA. She has produced, created, and presented workshops on Talent Discovery, Self Esteem, Visioning®, and Life Coaching. These dynamic life-changing events combine psychology, expressive arts and coaching principles and empower participants to discover and clarify their visions, passions and goals for success in life as well as business.

Beverly holds a Bachelors Degree in Psychology from California State University, Long Beach, a Master’s Degree from California State University, Dominguez Hills in relationship counseling, a Coaching/Mentoring Certificate from Cal State Long Beach and is a graduate of Guiding Mindful Change in San Diego. She is also a certified instructor of Creative Journal Expressive Arts, has a part-time life-coaching practice in Orange County, CA, is a distance coach for Family Friendly Schools and currently completing a trainer internship with Family Friendly Schools.

From 1995 to 2003, Dr. Constantino served as principal of Stonewall Jackson High School in Manassas, Virginia. Stonewall achieved much success, both nationally and internationally. During Dr. Constantino’s tenure, Stonewall Jackson High School student achievement consistently improved. Stonewall was named number one among all Prince William County High Schools in the percentage of students entering college and among the top ten percent of schools worldwide offering the International Baccalaureate Program.

Dr. Constantino was the 1997 Principal of the Year awarded by the Virginia State Counseling Association and the 2000 recipient of the Washington Post Distinguished Educational Leadership Award as well as being named the Prince William County Principal of the Year for 2000. In March 2000, and again in May 2003, Stonewall Jackson High School was listed among the nation’s “Top 100 high schools” in Newsweek magazine. The May 2001 issue of Time Magazine announced Stonewall Jackson as its “High School of the Year.” SAT Scores at Stonewall Jackson climbed 91 points in six years making Stonewall number one in SAT participation and achievement among all Prince William County Schools.

Dr. Constantino founded Family Friendly Schools in 1999, while residing as principal of Stonewall Jackson High School. With practical experience in the field of family engagement, Dr. Constantino’s “Engage All Families” Five- Step Process was formed to create data-driven results through family engagement and is now used by hundreds of schools and districts in 35 states.

Most recently, Vie co-authored the book, Building Better Schools by Engaging Support Staff. This project was conceived several years ago and has brought much clarity to engaging all support staff. Within the book, Vie discusses why support staff are critical links to school success and student achievement. Likewise, she offers numerous ideas on how to move individuals from "forgotten hero to an Engaged Ambassador." Building Better Schools by Engaging Support Staff has been received extremely well by both support staff and school administration.

As a member of the FFS team, Joan keeps us all on track, manages accounts receivables, payables, payroll, and assists in conference logistics.