Distinguished Alumni Award

Paige Hoffman ’06

Paige Hoffman ’06 is the Deputy Chief, School Improvement at District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) where she has also served as Deputy Chief, Design & Systems Improvement; Director for Innovation; and as a founding Special Education Teacher at Stanton Elementary School.

The DCPS mission is to ensure that every school guarantees students reach their full potential through rigorous and joyful learning experiences provided in a nurturing environment. With a focus on combating systemic inequities and individual biases to accelerate growth for students furthest from opportunity, Paige’s work seeks to dramatically accelerate the number of excellent DCPS schools through community-driven transformation, including design, partnerships, and comprehensive school planning.

She leads the District’s data-driven Equity Strategy and Programming Team to promote equitable outcomes for all students and also the implementation of DCPS Connected Schools—a holistic and “whole community” approach to school improvement focused on making schools spaces that support not only a student’s academic development, but a family's overall wellbeing. Paige launched DCPS’s first Design Lab for forward-thinking school leaders to reimagine their schools using human-centered design practices. She implemented this transformational approach at Anacostia and Ballou High Schools, garnering national attention for significant increases in community engagement. The schools have also experienced increases in graduation rates, teacher satisfaction and retention, and the number of students who report feeling loved.

Paige has distinguished herself through her service and leadership within the Maret alumni community. She served on the Alumni Council for many years, including two as President and member of Maret’s Board of Trustees. She earned a BS in social sciences from Harvard University and an EM in leadership from Georgetown University. Paige is also a Trustee at award-winning charter school Washington Yu Ying. She lives in Washington, DC, with her husband, Simon, and daughter, Annabel.
 

Dominique DeLeon ’00

Dominique DeLeon ’00 is the global creative director at Google Creative Works in Los Angeles, CA. DeLeon is an exceptionally creative professional who has used his many talents to write, direct, and produce award-winning film and television projects and develop meaningful content reaching over 30 million viewers.

DeLeon earned his undergraduate degree at Harvard University where he studied government. Realizing that he was more interested in storytelling than politics, he began a journey that started in music and continued with an MFA in film from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. He now manages production teams, working with multiple stakeholders within agency and production frameworks and overseeing on-set operations to deliver ambitious products with tight deadlines and budgets.

DeLeon directed the 2014 narrative Rez, a film about life on the Leech Lake Ojibwe reservation. It caught the eye of Spike Lee and was distributed by FNX and Seed & Spark. His 2010 film, Tags, was a finalist at the Shadow and Act Digital Filmmaker Showcase. In serving as creative director and owner of Special Boy Films, he produced the VMA-winning music video for Surefire, as well as directed music videos for John Legend’s Penthouse Floor and Preach. RollingStone called DeLeon’s video for Preach both “powerful” and “a harrowing look at a handful of issues taking root in America: school shootings, children being separated from parents at the border, law enforcement’s aggressive tactics toward African-Americans during traffic stops and more.”

Since graduating in 2000, DeLeon has regularly made himself available to current students and fellow alumni for professional insight and guidance. Sensitive to and thoughtful about systemic barriers to the entertainment and art industries, he loyally participates in Maret’s annual Alumni Career Panels and never turns down a request from teachers to visit classrooms and share his journey with students.

Drew Chafetz ’00
has combined a passion for soccer and social enterprise to become one of the foremost experts in mobilizing communities through sport. In 2006, shortly after returning from a trip to Morocco where he witnessed children playing soccer in dangerous conditions, Drew cofounded love.fútbol and has since served as CEO. A nonprofit that envisions a future where every child has a safe space to play soccer, love.fútbol partners with communities worldwide to create, reclaim, and redefine sports spaces as lasting platforms for youth and community development. Through the organization’s award-winning methodology, local residents from 46 communities across five continents have dedicated over 70,000 volunteer hours to plan, organize, and build inclusive and inspiring sports spaces. Tens of thousands of children play on love.fútbol spaces every day. Sponsors include ESPN, Coca-Cola, Disney, Under Armour, Unilever, UEFA, and the Pincus Family Foundation, which last year funded love.fútbol’s first projects in the United States.

Drew regularly speaks as a panelist on sport for social development, community empowerment, and social enterprise. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Colorado, has been a featured Ashoka Changemaker, and was twice named one of DC’s most influential residents under 40 by Washington Life.

De’Ara Balenger ’99 is a disruptor, creative, and strategist for brands and organizations on social impact, partnerships, philanthropy, and community engagement. She recently co-founded Maestra, a women’s thought leadership cooperative and social impact agency. 

Prior to Maestra, De’Ara spent over a decade in public service; she worked in the criminal justice system in South Florida, ran the Philadelphia Youth Commission, worked on two presidential campaigns, and was a political appointee in the Obama administration at the US Department of State, primarily serving as special assistant and then senior advisor to Cheryl Mills, counselor and chief of staff to former US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In the last presidential election cycle, De’Ara was the director of engagement for Hillary for America, where she forged strategic and creative alignments. She was the spark that activated the creative community, leading to creative fundraising opportunities and cementing a roster of millennial influencers, celebrities, activists, entrepreneurs, designers, and artists that the campaign tapped into for support.

De’Ara was a national organizer and strategic advisor to the Women’s March and was named a 2017 Glamour Woman of the Year for her role in the Women’s March. She is co-chair of the board for the Lower Eastside Girls Club, active supporter of the Women’s Prison Association, and a fundraiser for progressive political candidates. 

De’Ara has a B.A. in Black Studies from Macalester College and a J.D. from Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University.

She lives in Brooklyn with her partner, Paola Ramos.

Benjamin Marcovitz ’98 is the founder and CEO of Collegiate Academies (CA), currently operating three high schools in New Orleans and one in Baton Rouge. Beginning in 2007 with Sci Academy, CA has led the district in high school performance and has won honors from the Oprah Winfrey Show and US News & World Report. Ben previously taught in New Orleans, DC, and Boston. He holds a B.A. from Yale University and an Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Ben’s work at CA has earned him recognition from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, fellowships at Achievement First’s Charter Network Accelerator, the Pahara-Aspen Institute, the Broad Academy, as well as the Ryan Award for transformational urban school leadership. He has served on the faculties of New Leaders and Leading Educators and presents with Relay Graduate School of Education and Future Leaders in the United Kingdom, among others.

Susannah Wellford ’86 has founded two organizations designed to raise the political voice of young women in America.

In 2007, Susannah founded Running Start to inspire young women and girls to political leadership. Running Start has trained over 12,500 young women and girls from all around the country to lead in politics. Running Start furthers the work begun by the Women Under Forty Political Action Committee (WUFPAC), which Susannah cofounded in 1999 and led for five years. WUFPAC continues a national nonpartisan women’s group dedicated to electing young women to political office.

Susannah travels around the country speaking to colleges, law schools, political groups, and nonprofits about the importance of inspiring and empowering more young women to lead in politics she also regularly meets with groups from around the world including most recently Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Palestinian Territories. She was invited to Kuwait by the Kuwaiti government in spring 2006 to meet Kuwait’s first women candidates and to advise them on their campaigns and The State Department has sponsored her to speak in the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Algeria, Israel, Belgium and Russia.

After receiving her J.D. from the University Of Virginia School Of Law in 1998, she worked for several years at Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand, lobbying for state and local governments, foreign governments, corporate entities, and trade associations before Congress and the Executive Branch. Prior to law school, Susannah worked for Hillary Clinton’s Health Care Task Force in the Clinton White House and was a former legislative assistant for Senator Wyche Fowler from Georgia. Ms. Welford is a 1990 graduate of Davidson College she lives in Washington, DC with her twin sons, Ben and James.