Staff & Board of Directors

Now Hiring

College-age young people and recent college graduates play a critical role in our program as trained and paid Servant Leader Interns, who teach our summer classes and mentor our scholars. SLIs lead a class of up to 10 scholars, plus work with other team members to shape enrichment, reading helps, arts, and field trip activities for the whole school.

Servant Leader Interns offer front-line care, nurture and role modeling. Using our Integrated Reading Curriculum, Servant Leader Interns facilitate classroom learning, chaperone field trips and other special events, and serve as ambassadors for Freedom Schools.

SLIs must have completed their freshman year of college with a 2.5 GPA. Interested candidates should complete the form.

Organizational Leadership

Clifton Snorten
Executive Director

Clifton has been the leader of the CDF Freedom Schools® movement in Indianapolis since 2014. He fell in love with this program model while attending a Children's Defense Fund national conference and was committed to bringing it to his home city, so that all Hoosier families would have the opportunity to experience this life-changing summer experience.

He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in English Education from Indiana University, and two Masters of Arts degrees from Ball State University in Student Affairs Administration in Higher Education and Executive Development for Public Service.

Ryan Calvin
Director of Program Operations

Ryan is foremost a husband and father. As the Director of Program Operations, he works in conjunction with the Executive Director to manage operations for the CDF Freedom Schools sites. Ryan began his journey with the CDF Freedom Schools program at The Ohio State University in 2014 where he was a Servant Leader Intern (SLI) at the Circleville Correctional Facility site. Since then, he has been an SLI in Chicago and Site Coordinator in Indianapolis.

Ryan began his professional career in education as a science teacher and now works with Teach For America to recruit and develop new teachers to Indianapolis.