About
Our Mission
The Ithaca Public Education Initiative facilitates community connections and support for students and teachers of the Ithaca City School District through engagement, collaboration, gifts, and grants.
Our Values
Enhanced educational experiences: IPEI values enhanced educational experiences for all ICSD students, both in and outside of the classroom.
Community involvement: IPEI values and encourages partnerships between teachers and community members, colleges, foundations, and businesses, to advance the educational opportunities across the ICSD.
Creativity: IPEI values and supports teachers in their creative development of programs that foster high-quality educational activities.
Responsiveness: IPEI values opportunities to assist students and teachers in a timely manner when needs are identified. We are both proactive and reactive.
Our History
The Ithaca Public Education Initiative grew out of a challenge set forth in the Ithaca City School District Strategic Plan of 1996 calling for help in finding the extra resources required for the success of all students.
IPEI Staff
Executive Director
Indi McCasey
Indi believes in the power of collaborative creative practice to catalyze communities and foster change. They have spent the past 20 years working at the intersection of creativity, education, the environment, and community wellness with non-profit organizations, schools, and county departments of education in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Juneau, Kansas City, New York, Santa Fe, Seattle, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Indi is a co-founder of IDEAL Bay Area and also works as a Creative Education Consultant, facilitating professional learning communities and supporting organizational change through intergenerational collaboration, creative youth development, and educational equity. They continue to serve as a faculty member of Harvard’s Project Zero Classroom, engaging national and international educators and school leaders in Project Zero research and methodologies. Indi holds an Ed.M from the Harvard Graduate School of Education where they served as an Artist in Residence at Harvard’s Project Zero. You can learn more about Indi's work at indimccasey.com.
Communications Associate
Angie Liu
Angie Liu is a sophomore at Cornell University, where she studies Economics and Information Sciences at the College of Arts and Sciences. Outside of the classroom, she is committed to community-centered service. She volunteers with Guiding Eyes for the Blind, helping train service dogs that support visually impaired individuals, and regularly partners with nonprofits working to connect people who lack resources with the support they deserve.
Her commitment to education runs deep. She spent all of high school and part of college tutoring girls in math, motivated by the underrepresentation she saw in the field, and she hopes to keep supporting organizations that bring valuable, tangible change to the communities around her. She is drawn to the IPEI Communications Associate role because she cares deeply about public education and the education of young children, and sees it as a meaningful way to contribute to the Ithaca community while doing work she genuinely enjoys.
President
Moira Lang
Vice President
Charlie Trautmann
Treasurer
Kelly Cobb, CPA
Secretary
Lisa Gerber
Board of Directors
Margery Brodhead
Millicent Clarke-Maynard
Sam Conway
Jessica Custer-Bindel
Linda Duttweiler
Samantha Elebiary
Asha Jain
Rachel Lotz
Ross Tate
Michael Thompson
Kai Zhang
IPEI Student Liaisons
Naima Dege
Madeline Lewis
Camille Lindbloom
Interested in learning more about joining the IPEI Board of Directors? Email ipei@ipei.org