Our Team

Jason has worked in the K-12 environment for close to 20  years--First as a teacher focused on creating an environment beyond brick and mortar learning. Jason spent many years following by supporting school administrators across California with effective ways to leverage technology to lead 21st century schools as part of the statewide Technology Information Center for Administrative Leadership (TICAL) project as well training teachers in transformative practices in their classroom. Jason spent 3-years in leading curriculum and technology programs in a small school district in the Silicon Valley where he increased bandwidth from 20 MB/s to 1 GB/s thanks to support and the efforts of the K12HSN. 

Currently, Jason is leading Technology, Innovation, and Communication at the Santa Cruz County Office of Education as the Chief Technology Officer is former president of the Board of CUE, INC. Board of Directors – a non-profit focused on inspiring innovation in education. In 2014 Jason co-founded the DigitalEdAlliance, LLC with his partner, Michael Graham. Together they wrote a book published by Corwin, Google Tools for Middle School and have put together annual events in California and Arkansas focused on Google Tools and other transformative instructional programs. Jason is Google Certified Trainer and Google Certified Innovator. He is also certified trainer in the Leading Edge Certification program and helped develop the curriculum for the program.

Ask him about: middle school engagement strategies, connecting to schools and peers across the globe, PBL, the power of Makerspaces and STEAM

Stephanie Sumarna has been in education for more than 11 years.  She started as a middle school CORE teacher in Gilroy, teaching an integrated course on English Language Arts and Social Studies.  From there, she went on to work as both an upper and lower elementary teacher.  She joined the Santa Cruz COE team in 2020.

Her life as an educator changed when she attended her first CUE Conference in the Spring of 2014. She has always been passionate about utilizing EdTech and innovative teaching practices to support her students, but it was at this conference that she realized there was a bigger world of like minded educators.  She implemented Genius Hour in her third grade classroom at Bonny Doon Elementary School right away and never looked back.  At the Santa Cruz County Office of Education she is realizing her dream of building networks within her community to foster that same excitement for what school could be.  Stephanie works with both the Educational Services and Tech+ Teams to help bridge curriculum and technology as an EdTech and Innovation Coach. She aims to support, empower and inspire teachers and administrators.

Ask her about: alternatives to traditional homework, Genius Hour, using technology to streamline home to school communication, PBL and profession based learning, activating student agency, implementing standards based grading in elementary school, physical classroom design, fostering a positive school culture, student-centered teaching & learning