Edward A. Porritt, Founder and Executive Director
Ed has been an educator in Boulder County for 20 years, in communities from Broomfield to the Continental Divide, and has taught or administered drop-out prevention programs in both middle school and high school levels. Most recently, Ed was the Dean of Students at Nederland Middle Senior High School, where he continued to coordinate the Chinook West high school program at Teens Inc., Youth and Family Center. Prior to working at altitude, Ed was the administrator and first teacher of Chinook Alternatives, on which much of Catalyst EDU is based. Ed has been the Program Chairman and a Board Member for Attention Homes Youth Shelter and has served on the Board of Directors of Compass House. Ed has an M.A. in Educational Leadership from the University of Colorado in Boulder and a State of Colorado Principal License.

Leslie Levinson, Development Director
Leslie is the Development Director at Catalyst EDU and the former Operations Director for Emergency Family Assistance Association. She has over 25 years of experience working in human services and non-profit management. Leslie has expertise in the areas of administration, program management, and community and resource development. Her special areas of interest include the operation, resource development, and start up of non-profit programs, which address critical issues in the community.  Leslie has a M.P.A in Public Administration from Drake University and a B. S. in Social Work from the University of Iowa.

Pam Decker, Counselor
Besides being the school counselor at Catalyst EDU, Pam is a part-time counselor at Broomfield High School and the owner of the educational consulting firm College Counseling Services. Pam also is a college counselor on the College Summit Team, a nonprofit nation-wide organization that helps low-income high school students enter college. Selected as the Colorado Secondary Counselor of the year by in 1992, Pam has 32 years as a high school counselor and has been the Director of Guidance and Counseling at both Fairview and Centaurus High Schools in the Boulder Valley. Pam’s expertise includes dropout prevention, substance abuse, crisis counseling and career counseling, as well as working with students with perceptual-communicative disorders and emotional and behavioral issues. Pam has an M.A. in Special Education from the University Northern Colorado and her Counseling Certification from the University of Colorado. Pam’s affiliations include the Higher Education Consultants Association, the National Association for College Admission Counseling and the Colorado Council on High School and College Relations.

Julie Polisher, Teacher
Julie is the Catalyst teacher of Transition, Health, Teen Challenges and Personal Development. Julie has worked her magic in welcoming, stabilizing and transitioning high-risk students into solid academic studies for 15 years. Her career of loving and supporting students includes Chinook Alternatives, Arapahoe Ridge High School, Passages Intervention Program, Halcyon and Project Hold, all affiliated with the Boulder Valley Schools. Julie has a B.S. in Education from Ohio State University. The short list of Julie’s areas of expertise regarding students at risk includes adolescent law, juvenile delinquency, bully-proofing, crisis intervention, parent-child communication, single parenting, suicide prevention, gangs, violence prevention, assertive discipline, adolescent health, and humor in education.

Shaw Ketels, Teacher
Shaw has worked with students at risk of dropping out and in drop-out retrieval at TEENS, Inc., Youth and Family Center in the Chinook West, a program of Nederland High School. Shaw’s curriculum experience with the Boulder Valley Schools, includes teaching a variety of physical and life sciences, as well as all levels of math and health. In addition to his experience in the formal arena, Shaw has led multi-day wilderness trips and is a master of setting up community-based learning experiences for his students. When not teaching, Shaw is either disk-jockeying, teaching snowboarding or working on his PhD in Cognitive Science, with an emphasis in Educational Research. Shaw graduated from the University of Colorado, Cum Laude, with a B.A. in Neuroscience and is completing his M.A. in Cognitive Psychology this spring.

Debra Lund, Teacher
Debra will tell you that her life has been teaching since she left her Swedish community in upper Minnesota for Norway at the age of 18, where she started her career as a janitor. Debra’s free spirit and passion to learn has sent her around the world many times since. Debra has 10 years experience teaching high school and an equal number of years at the university level. Debra has been a foreign student advisor at the University of Colorado and a Professor of Translation in Como Italy. To say that Debra thrives on choices and variety is an understatement. Debra’s classroom experience includes world literature and other language arts, history, geography, art, and math, and English as a Second Language. She spent last year teaching Italian full-time at the Denver Public Schools’ International School. Her favorite place to study is Milan, but says she is very happy to be here again teaching with many of the educators she knew from Chinook. Debra has an Investment Broker’s License, and earned at least one of her degrees from the University of California at Berkley.