Christina Clark is an experienced Special Education professional. She started her teaching career as a Teacher of the Deaf, working first in the public schools and then transferring to the California School for the Deaf where she taught in the elementary grades for more than 10 years. Christina has also taught Resource (Special Education) in the Fremont, Livermore, and Pleasanton schools, where she specialized in reading, writing, and math intervention.
Her degree in Communicative Disorders and early training with deaf students uniquely prepared her to work with students who have learning differences, given that most at risk students have language-based auditory challenges. She has also made it a goal to attend workshops and conferences related to reading disorders and brain science throughout her career. In 2001, Christina founded the Barton Reading Program within the Pleasanton Unified School District, which provided at risk students with one-on-one specialized tutoring through the generosity of well-trained, monitored and supported volunteer tutors. When the program was eliminated from the district at the end of the 2012/13 school year, she left the district to become a founding partner of Foundations Tutoring, offering the same effective one-on-one tutoring that had already significantly improved the reading, spelling, and writing of over 450 students.
Laurie Kristof graduated from California Polytechnic State University with a BS in Industrial Technology and a concentration in Marketing in 1989. She began her career in the Aerospace Industry as a Manufacturing Planner/Technical Writer. In 2000, Laurie worked as an Operations Manager for a small company and then in 2002, after years of advocating for her own daughter diagnosed with learning differences, she discovered her passion to work with students with reading challenges. Laurie began as a volunteer for the Pleasanton Unified School District Barton Reading Program and in 2006 was hired as an Early Intervention Barton Tutor at Valley View Elementary School. She provided one-on-one, multi-sensory tutoring to students identified at risk. Laurie became a Certified Barton Tutor in 2008 and in 2011 transitioned to a Barton Facilitator role at Valley View Elementary, where she identified students for the program, supported tutors, monitored student progress and coordinated scheduling. As a private tutor and business woman, Laurie created and managed a successful tutoring business from 2006-2013. Using the Barton Reading & Spelling Program, she continued to tutor students from K-12 and handled all day-to-day operations until she became a founding member of Foundations Tutoring.