Featured Alumni

Marcos Martinez - 2005 Fellow - Founder, Ricardo Flores Magon Academy - Denver, CO

Fellowship Year: 2005
Title: Head of School, Ricardo Flores Magon Academy
Enrollment: 180 students
School Opening: 2006
Grades: K-8

Marcos is a 2005 Building Excellent Schools Fellow and the Lead Founder of the Ricardo Flores Magon Academy, a K-8 charter school in Denver. The Academy’s mission is to prepare each of its students for success in college preparatory high schools through a rigorous academic program and a comprehensive character development program. Marcos came to this work after several years as an organizer with the Metropolitan Organizations for People (MOP), and substantial work as a Sociology instructor at the University of Colorado. Regardless of where he’s worked, Marcos has been valued and respected for his passion, skill, and unbounded energy.

People as talented and accomplished as Marcos have seemingly unlimited options for professional careers to pursue. Marcos would make an exceptional lawyer, businessman, or politician, but none of those professions hold the sort of promise for impact, meaning, and opportunity that leading a school does. He is connected to his community. He knows and has worked with countless young people who have had limited choices and lives full of regret because of the failure of adults to educate them. He hears their needs, their cries for help—and he is ready to respond with perhaps the most essential component to restoring the vitality of economically distressed areas where hope is scarce and opportunity seemingly nonexistent—a great school.