Born in the United States, Mrs. Barber Spent Her Early Childhood Years in the Netherlands

Aagje Barber

Born in the United States, Mrs. Barber spent her early childhood years in the Netherlands. She returned to the U.S. as a third grader speaking no English, which has given her a unique perspective on the needs of the growing number of Cherry Creek students and families who speak a language other than English. She earned her Masters of Arts degree in Speech Pathology and Audiology from the University of Houston, and worked as a special education teacher, educational diagnostician, and speech pathologist at schools in Texas and Oklahoma before settling in Colorado.

Ms. Barber has volunteered in the schools, mentoring students and serving on the PTCO and Parent Information Network (PIN), as well as other committees and organizations. She has served on the Board of Education since 2000 and has been president of the Board since 2005. She has two children who graduated from Smoky Hill High School. Mrs. Barber is self-employed.

Jennifer Churchfield

Jennifer Churchfield graduated in 1985 from Miami University with a B.S. in Mass Communications. She also swam for Miami for 2 years and studied abroad in Luxembourg for a semester in 1983.

Ms. Churchfield worked in medical sales for several companies, finishing with Nellcor, Inc. in 1993 selling patient monitoring systems. She married in 1988 to Marty Churchfield and they moved to Colorado that same year.

She became involved in with the Cherry Creek School District beginning at Cottonwood Creek Elementary in various volunteer positions including PTO president, served as President of the Cherry Creek Community Legislative Network in 2004/05 and served as a Building Coordinator for the 2003 Bond and Budget election.

Claudine McDonald

Claudine McDonald has been married to her husband AJ for 16 years and has 2 beautiful children.Jordan, herson,is 17 and herdaughter, Janai,is 14 years old. Both children attend schools within the Cherry Creek School District.

Claudine earned her degree in Communication at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She has trained on the topic of Healthcare Diversity/Cultural Competency issues to over 25,000 individuals in Colorado and around the country and has worked to integrate diversity perspectives into organizational structures.

Claudine has received 2 Governor of Colorado appointments. Governor Owens (R), appointed Claudine to the Governor’s Asian Pacific American Advisory Council where she worked to promote diversity and competency to increase quality of services for diverse communities. Governor Ritter (D), appointed her to the Senate Bill 211 Advisory Commission to Cover All Colorado Kids to promote healthcare coverage for all Colorado children.

Claudine has worked for Colorado Access, a non profit health plan, for 14 years and is the Director of the Office of Member & Family Affairs. In her role, she is responsible for directing the marketing and outreach initatives for the company with multple lines of business. In 2007, she was elected to the Cherry Creek School District Board of Education where she continues to serve the school district.

Jim O’Brien

Mr. O’Brien has served on the Cherry Creek Board of Education since 2008. Over the last seven years, Mr. O’Brien has been actively engaged in several not-for-profit endeavors. He served as a board member, and later chairman, of the Cherry Creek Schools Foundation, an organization whose mission is to expand excellence in education by funding initiatives that impact student achievement.

During this time, the foundation raised over 1.2 million dollars in support of its student-driven objectives. As chairman of the foundation, Mr. O’Brien led a successful strategic planning initiative that reoriented the organization’s direction in order to greatly expand its fund-raising capabilities.

Mr. O’Brien currently serves on the board of Freedom Service Dogs, Inc, a not for profit organization that rescues dogs from shelters and trains them to assist people with special needs (most notably veterans), enabling them to lead more independent lives.

Randy Perlis

Mr. Perlis has served on the Cherry Creek School District Board of Education since 2007 Prefessionally, he has more than 18 years of experience with EPA contracts with the Field Investigation Team (FIT), Technical Assistance Team (TAT), and Superfund Technical Assistance and Response Team (START). Mr. Perlis has been the START senior project manager for Counter Terrorism program since 1996. He was the project manager for the Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Olympic Games, providing support to the local, state and federal agencies before and during the Winter Games. Mr. Perlis is a active member of the Front Range Hazardous Material Group, which is comprised of local front range Hazmat teams, Colorado State Patrol Hazmat, Region 8 Civil Support Team, FBI, and other state and federal WMD oriented agencies. Mr. Perlis has help design, coordinate, and participate in many counterterrorism training exercises throughout the region, including several Nunn-Lugar exercises and a Pueblo Army Depot exercise. He has also designed many small scale readiness training exercises for Federal, State, Local emergency response agencies in the region. Mr. Perlis reviews and approves Health and Safety plans for site work completed under START.