Meet our Board of Directors

 Nina Vieira 

Nina Vieira:

7/1/2023 - 6/30/2025

[email protected]

Board Chair

Nina Vieira is a stay at home mom who has been homeschooling her two children, now in 12th and 10th grade, for the past 13 years. This year, Nina is serving as our Board Chair and has previously served as Board Secretary, Treasurer, and Co-Chairman. Before stepping into her role as a homeschooling mom, Nina worked for The Outdoor Channel as manager of the editorial department. Prior to that, she spent six years as Assistant Editor for a mail order book company, feeding her love of reading. Both positions required her to pay great attention to detail, making sure that her staff and company met all deadlines given, without mistakes. She now spends a majority of her time as a homeschool teacher, wife and youth worker for her church. Some of Nina's strengths are being organized, which is a great necessity while homeschooling, being teachable, and being committed to my children's education and to Connecting Waters Charter Schools. She loves the variety of learning options her children have at CWCS, and serving on the Board allows her to be active in her children’s school, while also ensuring that CWCS will be around for future students. She believes that homeschooling her children in this independent study program, whether the kids are taking online classes, learning center classes, or do home study, has created a close-knit environment within her family and built confidence within her children that they can achieve success in whatever they pursue as they grow up. 

Bonnie Cerruti

Bonnie Cerruti

12/1/ 2020 -6/30/2024

[email protected]

Board Secretary 

 Bonnie has been a parent at the school for over 16 years. Her youngest attended K-12th, graduating as a National Honors Society Student, a 4 year CA Scholarship Federation Student and with over 40 units of college under her belt. As a parent, Bonnie served on the Parent Council Board and understands the parent perspective.

Bonnie has a heart for children and for volunteering. She founded and served as executive director for The Sonora Children's Theatre. The theatre school employed over 15 instructors teaching in a wide variety of theatrical fields and was a vendor for CWCS, giving Bonnie exposure to the vendor side of things.

After leaving the Sonora area, Bonnie found herself creating engaging curriculum and instructing as a "small group leader," at the Modesto and Ceres Learning Centers. She was employed by the school for 9 years giving her experience as a school employee and the opportunity to meet several of the amazing families that attended CWCS. She also met many of the School employees and was enlightened by seeing a glimpse of the "behind the scenes" work that takes place at the learning centers and the library.

As one of the first volunteers for The Carole Sund Carrington Memorial Reward Foundation, Bonnie served 5 years. She has served with Valley Home Educators and as the Guild President for Juline Regional Youth Ballet. Other experience includes managing a United Express Airline station, inside sales for the Modesto Bee and currently managing properties while overseeing the complete remodel of a 36 unit complex. Her "fun" job is working security for College and NFL Games, including Superbowls and PGA.

Jennifer Louie-Monzon

Jennifer Louie-Monzon:

[email protected]

7/1/2023 - 6/30/2025

Board Member 

Jennifer Louie-Monzon is a parent at Connecting Waters East Bay. She and her family are Bay Area natives and are still pretty new to the adventures of homeschooling. Jennifer has two children, a continuing 5th grade son and a 2nd grade daughter who will start her journey at CWEB this coming fall. When Jennifer's son completed the 1st grade, she and her husband realized that the traditional classroom setting was not ideal for their gifted child with impulsive-type ADHD. Jennifer and son both take equal ownership in their decision to begin their homeschooling journey, and they are enjoying their partnership thus far. Jennifer studied biomedical engineering at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo and has worked in the medical device industry ever since. Prior to being a CWEB parent, Jennifer held various PTA officer positions at her children's public school. During her two-year term as PTA president, she held the officers to three standards: improve relations with school leadership, sponsor programs and events that benefit all students fairly, and modernize PTA operations to become more efficient. Jennifer is excited to bring her professional and volunteering experiences, and her dedication to helping students and their parents to the CWCS Board.

K Fatima

Kaneez Fatima

 7/1/2022 – 6/30/2024

[email protected]

Board Member

Kaneez Fatima is a proud mother of two boys. Having gone through the traditional route of schooling, she always felt that she wanted more choice and say in her own early education. She wanted her children to have that choice so they could drive their own learning with their own interests. While exploring many education options she found Connecting Waters Charter Schools and immediately liked their Personalized Learning approach. Her family has since been with CWCS for more than ten years. Her older child will be graduating from High School this coming year.

Before becoming a mom, she worked as a Senior Financial Auditor with Deloitte for six years and gained valued audit experience with over 40 companies. She has experience auditing with many industry sectors; manufacturing, hospitality, banking, insurance, construction, pharmaceuticals, wholesale, retail, and more.

She currently works as a Resident Coordinator for a DV shelter in the Bay Area. She is a strong advocate for women’s and youth empowerment and has volunteered with several organizations for projects focusing on women and youth development. She loves to work with youth and finds their creativity and imagination inspiring. She believes that investing in a good education contributes toward a successful society.

She loves to travel and explore new places. She wants to plant the seeds of curiosity in her children so they can gain experiences from the miracles in the world around them. She is also a foodie and loves to try new cuisines. Her favorite past-time is reading, and most of the time, can be found sitting in a corner nose-deep in a book. She loves to create and enjoys learning new skills. Currently, she is into watercolor paintings.

She hopes to bring her unique attitude of learning-by-exploring to inspire students and parents at Connecting Waters Charter Schools.

Robert Avila

Robert Avila:

July 1, 2020- June 30, 2024 [email protected]

Board Co Chair

Robert Avila has been married to Lisa for 34 years and they have two children, Stephen and Sarah. Sarah graduated from Connecting Waters Charter Schools. Robert served as parent council president and he and his wife started the Science Olympiad program at CWCS. Robert earned a master's from the University of Phoenix in Business Administration and was employed by Nestle USA for 30 years as a National Sales Manager. He was a strategic Sales Leader with experience in successfully elevating revenue and capitalizing on business opportunities for profit and growth in the food, dairy, and confections industry. Robert was acknowledged for consistently exceeding sales quotas and driving upwards of 100% annual growth. He was a proactive leader and who empowered sales teams to exceed aggressive goals. He is a cancer-survivor and overcomer. Involved with running for over thirty-eight years, he enjoys coaching high school and club track & cross-country. Reaching the heart of a child is Robert's passion in life. He not only teaches runners how to win on the track but also how to win in life by loving and serving others. Robert brings his strategic leadership skills and business acumen to CWCS. He is a visionary thinker who has a passion to help the youth reach their full potential.

Erika

Erika Melton

7/1/2022 – 6/30/2024

[email protected]

Assistant Board Secretary

Erika Melton is excited to begin her journey as a new member of the Board of Directors for Connecting Waters Charter Schools. As a parent at CWCV for 6 years, she has watched her two children excel and grow while utilizing the many resources CWCS has to offer. Erika began her love of education working in Children’s centers and earned her BA in Early Childhood Education with a Minor in Exceptional Youth from CSU, Stanislaus in 2009. Feeling the need to stay at home with her son, she opened a Family Day Care so that she could continue to educate while keeping things more personalized for her growing family. As her children grew older, she took on other roles that allowed her to teach another passion she has, sewing!

Erika is currently a stay-at-home mom who has been homeschooling her two children, now in the 4th and 7th grades. She volunteers as a Girl Scout Leader for her daughter’s troop and loves taking on
projects that allow her to utilize her passions of creativity and educating others. 

Denise Davis

Denise Davis

 7/1/2023 – 6/30/2025

[email protected]

Board Member

Denise Davis has been married for thirty-nine years to her husband, Mark. They have four children, two of which graduated from Connecting Waters Charter Schools. She is a grandma to eleven grandkids, and out of those, three currently attend CWCS. Denise is presently working as the Chief Financial Officer for a local construction corporation.

Over the twenty-plus years of Denise’s homeschooling career, she has acquired experience in the many facets of personalized learning and has become well acquainted with information on successfully navigating the homeschooling process. She enjoys volunteering her time at homeschool conventions and with her granddaughter's Girl Scout troop. Her passion is helping children discover and learn their individual interests and thrive in pursuing them. She has many interests, including anything involving crafts, cake decorating, and science, but her favorite is community service. She looks forward to serving the parents, students, and staff as a member of the Board of Directors.

 

The Board can be contacted through email at [email protected] or by mail: 

CW Board of Directors, 12420 Bentley Street, Waterford, CA  95386

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