DFER Washington Staff & Board of Advisors
Lisa Macfarlane, DFER Washington State Director
As of January 2012, Lisa Macfarlane will be leading Washington State's DFER chapter. Lisa comes with a wealth of policy and political expertise and a track record of building successful organizations. She co-founded the League of Education Voters and LEV Foundation, two highly respected and influential education advocacy organizations in Washington State.
Lisa has spent the last 16 years fighting for the resources and the reforms that Washington's schools need. She has walked the talk on both school funding and school reform. She sponsored two statewide education funding ballot initiatives and she is former President of Schools First, Seattle's on-going levy and bond campaign committee.
Before finding her calling in the politics of school reform, she worked in the juvenile justice system for 15 years. She began as a VISTA volunteer in a maximum-security juvenile correctional facility in Columbia, S.C. and worked as a public defender in juvenile court in Seattle. In between, she staffed wagon trains and wilderness camps for court referred youth.
Lisa has received numerous awards including: Citizen of the Year (Municipal League, 2008), Friend of Children (Washington State PTA, 2007), Friend of Public Education (Washington Education Association, 2002).
She explains her decision to join DFER by saying, "Partisan problems need partisan solutions. It is painfully clear that Washington State needs a more productive dialogue about education issues within the Democratic Party."
