Frances Messano is President at NewSchools Venture Fund. In this role, she oversees our four investment areas, as well as our research and learning team. Throughout her six year tenure at NewSchools, Frances has had a broad set of responsibilities, including creating the Diverse Leaders investment strategy, leading the Innovative Schools team and developing the content for four Summit conferences.
Previously, Frances served as a Vice President at Teach for America, where she led the development of the organization’s long-term, national strategy. Before that, Frances was an Associate Partner at Monitor Institute, where she worked with education non-profits and foundations to scale their impact through strategy development, organizational design, leadership development, and program design.
Frances has an MBA from Harvard Business School and AB from Harvard College. She serves on the board of Unidos US, Stand for Children, Pahara Institute, Latinos for Education, and GO Public Schools. She is also a Pahara-Aspen education fellow. Frances is a first-generation college graduate and an alum of Prep for Prep, Management Leadership for Tomorrow, and Sponsors for Educational Opportunity, non-profit organizations that she credits with helping her gain access to educational opportunity. Frances sings with the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir and will always say yes to a karaoke night out.
Stacey Childress is the CEO at NewSchools Venture Fund. A nationally recognized expert on philanthropy and innovation PreK-12 education, she joined NewSchools in 2014. Childress previously led the K-12 Next Generation Learning team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, investing in schools and technologies that enable better learning outcomes for middle and high school students in the United States. In 2012, she was named to the Forbes Impact 15 list, a group of innovators reimagining learning globally.
Prior to joining Gates, Childress was on the faculty of the Harvard Business School where she wrote and taught about entrepreneurial activity in public education in the United States. Her work focused on urban public school districts, charter schools, and nonprofit and for-profit enterprises with missions to improve the public system. During her time at Harvard she wrote three books and more than 30 cases and articles about education entrepreneurship.
Before working in academia, Childress co-founded an enterprise software company. She also spent 10 years in corporate sales and general management after working as a classroom teacher early in her career.
Romy Drucker is a deputy director for the K-12 Education Program at the Walton Family Foundation. In this role, she oversees team operations and grantmaking strategy. Prior to joining the foundation, Romy was the co-founder and CEO of The 74, an award-winning nonprofit news organization focused on education.
Prior to launching The 74, Romy worked at the New York City Department of Education on Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein’s transformational Children First reforms. Romy served as chief of staff for the Division of Portfolio Planning working on efforts including new school development, school improvement and accountability, and early childhood education.
Prior to that, Romy served as the special assistant to Chancellor Joel I. Klein and as deputy to the Chief Executive Officer of The Fund for Public Schools, which has raised several hundred million dollars for innovative educational programs serving New York City's 1.1 million students.
As CEO of Public Prep, Ian provides the strategic direction for the network of single-sex elementary and middle public schools that are determined to put their students on a predictive path to earn a degree from a four-year university.
Ian was the Deputy Director of Postsecondary Success at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he worked to increase college completion rates among low income young adults. Ian worked for MTV as the Senior Vice President of Strategic Partnerships and Public Affairs. Prior to MTV, Ian worked as the director of strategy and performance measurement at The White House USA Freedom Corps office.
Mark Murphy is the founder of GripTape, an organization that exists at the edge of what people perceive possible — a nonprofit designed by young people and aimed squarely at helping youth to be the true drivers of their learning. From humble beginnings with nine teens five years ago, GripTape has grown its reach to serve young people across 48 states. And through radical, youth-created learning models most adults deemed naive, these efforts have resulted in proven and powerful outcomes that have attracted dozens of partners and researchers. More than 1000 youth power the GripTape engine, and our work has only just begun.
Before launching GripTape, Mark served as Delaware's secretary of education. During his tenure, academic achievement improved significantly, college access and success rates soared, high school dropout rates reached the lowest level in history, and the graduation rate grew at a record pace to a record high. Mark has also spent a considerable portion of his career directly developing and supporting hundreds of school leaders across the country as executive director of multiple organizations. His national contributions are significant with service on multiple boards, including the Council of Chief State School Officers and Chiefs for Change.
He began his career as a teacher and went on to lead the dramatic turnaround of a low-performing school. Mark’s true passion and purpose is putting in place the conditions that enable our young people to uncover their often hidden potential to achieve and lead.
When Alejandro Gibes de Gac was 7, his family immigrated to the US escaping political persecution and seeking educational opportunities. He published a memoir at 12 chronicling his challenges transitioning to life in America. In the process, he became as passionate about the education of others as he was about his own.
After graduating from Harvard in 2009, he spent two years as a 1st grade teacher in Philadelphia. There he became frustrated that his students—and millions more in low-income communities—lack continuous access to learning at home and school. As a result they face chronic, summertime reading losses in elementary school that account for two-thirds of the achievement gap in high school. This is symptomatic of a deeper problem: low-income parents have been left out of the process of educating their kids.
Alejandro founded Springboard Collaborative in 2011 to close the literacy gap by closing the gap between home and school. Alejandro was since honored as ‘one of the world’s best emerging social innovators’ by Echoing Green, a leading venture philanthropy firm that selected 20 fellows from 3,500 global applicants. He was also recognized as one of Forbes Magazine’s 30 Under 30 in 2014; one of two national recipients of the Claneil Emerging Leaders distinction in 2015; one of the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s 40 Under 40 in 2016; and a recipient of the People of Promise award from America’s Promise in 2017.
Alejandro is an alumnus of Teach for America and McKinsey & Company. He holds a BA with high honors from Harvard University and an MS in Urban Education from the University of Pennsylvania.
Kaya Henderson is the CEO of Reconstruction, a technology company delivering a K-12 supplemental curriculum that situates Black people, culture, and contributions in an authentic, identity-affirming way, so that students of all backgrounds benefit from a more complete understanding of our shared history and society. She is also the co-host of Pod Save the People, and leads Kaya Henderson Consulting.
She is perhaps best known for serving as Chancellor of DC Public Schools from 2010-2016. Her tenure was marked by consecutive years of enrollment growth, an increase in graduation rates, improvements in student satisfaction and teacher retention, increases in AP participation and pass rates, and the greatest growth of any urban district on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) over multiple years. Kaya's career began as a middle school Spanish teacher in the South Bronx, through Teach For America. She went on to work as a recruiter, national admissions director, and DC Executive Director for Teach for America. Henderson then served as the Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at The New Teacher Project (TNTP) until she began her tenure at DCPS as Deputy Chancellor in 2007.
She most recently led the Global Learning Lab for Community Impact at Teach For All, supporting educators in more than 50 countries. A native of Mt. Vernon, NY, Kaya graduated from Mt. Vernon Public Schools. She received her Bachelor’s degree in International Relations and her Master of Arts in Leadership from Georgetown University, as well as honorary doctoral degrees from Georgetown and Trinity University. Her board memberships include The Aspen Institute, Curriculum Associates, Robin Hood NYC, and Teach For America, and she is the co-founder of Education Leaders of Color (EdLoC).
Dr. Gislaine N. Ngounou, Ed. L.D., serves as Vice President of Programs and Strategy at the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, where she oversees the organization’s grantmaking strategy focused on advancing racial equity in public education.
With more than fifteen years of experience working across the education sector, Gislaine brings a breadth of experience that includes work with nonprofits, individual schools, and school districts. She’s served as the Chief Program Officer for Arlington, Virginia-based Phi Delta Kappa International, a professional organization for educators. In this role, she designed and led programs that supported school district leaders, provided leadership coaching surrounding issues of equity and social justice, and created and facilitated an ongoing community that allowed system level leaders in districts from across the country to learn from one another.
Prior to her work at Phi Delta Kappa, Gislaine worked for school districts including Hartford Public Schools, Montgomery County Public Schools, and Kansas City Missouri School District. She is passionate about social justice, racial equity, adult learning, youth and community empowerment, system change, and increasing educational opportunities for all students. Gislaine holds a Bachelor of Science degree and an Education Specialist in Administration degree from University of Missouri Kansas City, a Master of Arts in Teaching from University of Missouri Central, and a Doctor of Education Leadership from Harvard Graduate School of Education.
As President of The Cleveland Avenue Foundation for Education (The CAFE), Liz is deeply engaged in the non-profit community and passionate about youth development and education. The CAFE is focused on college access and success and career readiness and attainment. Also, through the foundation, Liz mentors and supports students and young professionals as they transition through life. Liz grew up in Chicago’s Cabrini Green housing development and credits her parents and a strong community for shaping her values and vision. When others wonder how she somehow “beat the odds” as a product of Cabrini, Liz firmly declares that her success is because of where she came from, not in spite of it.
Liz began working with non-profits in 1993 as founding Executive Director of City Year Chicago, a national service organization that was the template for the AmeriCorps Program. Then in 1995, Liz served as Executive Director of a Montessori school in Denver, where she led a multi-million-dollar expansion of the Early Head Start program. In 1998, she became active with non-profit boards in the San Diego area, which further fueled her interest in philanthropy and education. Prior to following her passion for youth development and education, Liz had a ten-year career with Ameritech Corporation after receiving an Electrical Engineering degree from Purdue University.
Liz is a Director of the Lamar Corporation, Director and Secretary for Chicago Public Media/WBEZ and a National Director for Braven and Chair of Braven’s Chicago Board. She serves as Vice Chair of the Partnership for College Completion, co-chair of Purdue University Minority Engineering Program Advisory Panel and Special Advisor to OneGoal. She is an alumnus of the Non-Profit Leadership Program of Denver and of Leadership Greater Chicago, where she served on the Board for 10 years. Liz is a past Trustee of the University of Chicago, the Museum of Science and Industry, and the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Most recently, Liz joined a distinguished cohort of Aspen Institute Global Leaders as a 2019 Pahara Education Fellow. She received the Outstanding Community Leader Award from The Association of Fundraising Professionals, the Dream Builders Award from the Chicago Child Care Society, the John J. Dugan Award from OneGoal and was featured in Make It Better Magazine as one of Chicago’s Top Black Women of Impact. She has appeared as a keynote speaker for the National Center on Family Philanthropy, the Forefront Annual Luncheon, the Rustandy Center for Social Sector Innovation, and the Chicago Venture Summit.
In addition to her commitment to serving Chicago’s students, professionals and communities, Liz is the co-founder with her husband, Don Thompson, of Cleveland Avenue, LLC - a food and beverage focused venture fund. Cleveland Avenue provides financial resources, expertise and individual support to entrepreneurs as they grow and scale their businesses. Liz has been married to Don, retired CEO of McDonald’s Corporation, for 30 years. They have two adult children and live in the southwest area of metropolitan Chicago.
Natalie Wilson is a Senior Associate Partner on the Diverse Leaders team, focused on management assistance and designing communities of practice. Prior to NewSchools, Natalie served as the Director of Strategy & Operations for The School District of Philadelphia Charter Schools Office, as part of The Broad Residency in Urban Education. In this district authorizing role, she focused on strategic planning, school operations, and family and community engagement.
Prior to the residency, she was a portfolio manager at REDF, a workforce-focused nonprofit venture philanthropy fund, where she provided strategic guidance to social enterprises focused on providing jobs and pathways to employment for individuals with significant barriers to employment.
Natalie holds a master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She lives in Washington, DC with her amazing daughter and loves drawing and playing competitive volleyball in her spare time.
Dr. Kyla Johnson-Trammell grew up attending schools in the Oakland Unified School District and has spent most of her 22-year career in the district. She currently serves as superintendent.
Johnson-Trammell began her career as a teacher and teacher coach at Parker Elementary School. She next served as assistant principal at Oak Grove Middle School in the Mount Diablo Unified School District and spent two years in that position before returning to Oakland as principal of Sequoia Elementary School. From there, she advanced to administrator on special assignment. In this capacity, Johnson-Trammell was responsible for coaching 40 school leaders.
She later took on positions as associate superintendent of leadership, curriculum and instruction; lead network superintendent; and interim deputy superintendent. Johnson-Trammell has received a number of awards and honors, including Outstanding Principal of Alameda County by the Beta Mu Chapter of Alpha Delta Kappa, an international honorary organization for women educators. She also earned the Outstanding District Leadership Award. She holds a bachelor’s in communications from the University of Pennsylvania; a teaching credential from California State University, Hayward; and an administrative credential and a doctorate in educational leadership from the University of California, Berkeley.
Lakisha Young is Co-Founder & CEO of The Oakland REACH, a parent-run organization founded in 2016 with the mission to “make the powerless parent powerful.” She has dedicated her career to promoting access to quality schools because she knows firsthand that a good education changes lives. The Oakland REACH has conducted over 5,000 1:1s with parents in Oakland’s most underserved communities and trained 450 families in their fellowship program to create a team of informed and organized parent advocates fighting for quality schools.
Because of this foundation and fieldwork, The Oakland REACH is in a unique position to reach and support families during COVID19. That’s why Lakisha moved urgently within days of the city’s stay-at-home order to launch the REACH Relief Fund. Under her leadership, the team raised and distributed $400,000 in emergency cash assistance to over 1,000 families, twice, to help pay for rent and groceries. But the crisis didn’t stop there, so neither did this work. Lakisha created a vision for an Oakland City-wide Virtual Family Hub, a one-stop shop supporting families’ economic survival and their children’s educational success. This first-of-its-kind model to make parents leaders in their children’s education launched in June 2020 with almost 200 families. The Hub has been featured in local, national, and international media from TIME Magazine to KQED, BBC News, CNN, Univision, The San Francisco Chronicle, and more.
Lakisha has led and created multiple major campaigns and initiatives for The Oakland REACH. In March 2019, The Oakland REACH had a significant policy win, The Opportunity Ticket, which gives the most vulnerable students higher preference for enrolling in quality schools. Building off the successful passage of the Opportunity Ticket, The Oakland REACH doubled down on its commitment to opportunity with the launch of Literacy for All, a campaign targeting increasing the literacy of the whole family — including the mamas and grandmamas.
Lakisha is a respected national voice on parent advocacy and regularly consults other cities across the country interested in exploring parent advocacy to demand for better access to quality education for underserved students.
Former high school teacher and school leader committed to leaving this world a better place. I am an executive with over 15 years of experience who has developed youth brands and products that have reached hundreds of millions of people. I am a designer, community builder, educator, and content creator at heart. My north star: I pursue equity and justice through creative products and powerful storytelling.
A distinguished TEDx speaker and an award-winning published poet, Nytesia Ross has graced many stages across the country, from Texas, to New York, to California, all the way to the Kennedy Center stage in Washington D.C. Nytesia is also a recognized videographer. Her work has been shown at the Association for the Study of African American Life and History Conference in South Carolina and has been featured on the organization’s website.
In her current role, she serves as a digital content producer and youth council lead at XQ Institute - an organization that is dedicated to rethinking high school so that every student has access to a high-quality and equitable education. Previously, she served as a news producer at KLTV7/KTRE9 - ABC news affiliates in Texas. Nytesia received her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Mass Communications from Stephen F. Austin State University.
Joshua Stern is a rising freshman at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Education, Culture, and Human Development, where he intends to major in education studies. He is a passionate and results driven advocate for critical thinking and believes in student centered, holistic approaches to education. Josh is an intern at XQ Institute and a founding member of their Student Advisory Committee where he provides feedback on the organization's products and educational initiatives and helps determine the direction of student facing efforts.
As a person with a physical disability, he is also deeply committed to building equity for students and others with disabilities, and has worked with the Division of Specialized Instruction and Student Support at the New York City Department Of Education to blend his two passions by creating structures to further student voice and agency in the nation’s largest school district. In his free time, he enjoys creative writing, and is currently editing his first novella.
Zoey Young is a current senior at Iowa BIG located in Cedar Rapids, IA. Upon graduation, she plans to continue her studies at Lake Forest College in Illinois and major in Biology/Environmental Science. Zoey is not only passionate about the environment and maintaining biodiversity, but she is also dedicated to helping students realize their full potential.
She is currently a member of the Student Advisory Committee at XQ Institute where she serves as a student advocate. She shares her insights on her high school experience, assists in XQ’s design process, and the organization’s storytelling efforts across their digital platforms. Most recently, Zoey co-designed XQ’s first-ever student-led Community Practice event where she spoke on behalf of herself and her peers to an audience of school leaders from around the country to help them gain insight on how we can help prepare students for success.
Zoey is in the perfect position to give a perspective that is both now and next focused. She can speak to what has worked, what doesn’t, and what high school students currently need. She believes high schools should be better and she is doing what she can to make that happen.
Alexis is an African American Sophomore at Summit Shasta, California with a current 4.00 GPA. After high school, Alexis hopes to graduate from Howard University and pursue a career in international law and human rights. She is a strong public speaker, jazz musician and a passionate advocate in political science and injustices. She is the Executive Director of her school’s Black Student Union, a youth-led space that raises political and cultural awareness while making functional and physical changes in her community.
She has brokered a partnership between BSU and 4DalyCity, a nonprofit grassroots organization. This collaboration has fed and clothed over 1,000 homeless people throughout San Francisco. Through her internship with Bay Area’s Video Coalition, she’s utilized audio engineering skills to shed light on social injustices through artistic format. Additionally, Alexis holds a position on the XQ Student Advisory Committee and works to rethink education to create opportunities for student-led advocacy and success.
As of January 2021, Alexis will be studying abroad at The African Leadership Academy through The School of Ethics and Global Leadership located in Johannesburg, South Africa. Alexis hopes to further involve herself in activism and partnerships that will strengthen her as a community leader.
Julia Rafal-Baer, Ph.D., has dedicated her career to helping all children achieve their potential. After beginning her career as a special education teacher in the Bronx nearly two decades ago, Dr. Rafal-Baer is now atop education adviser who has spent more than a decade leading high-performance, high-impact organizations nationwide. As Chief Operating Officer of Chiefs for Change, a bipartisan network of state and district education leaders that affects one in three students nationwide, Dr. Rafal-Baer advocates for student-centered change across the country.
Throughout the Covid-19 crisis, she played an instrumental role advising school districts and state education agencies across the U.S. in their response and currently leads a nationwide effort to safely reopen schools with proper precautions, including robust Covid-19 testing programs, in place. She serves as an expert advisor to the COVID Collaborative. In her role at Chiefs for Change, Dr. Rafal-Baer is passionate about cultivating leadership roles for women and diversifying the education field.
Since joining the organization in 2016 Dr. Rafal-Baer has directly mentored 50 leaders in the Future Chiefs program, 42 percent of whom who went on to become superintendents and commissioners. 78 percent of these leaders are leaders of color and 44 percent of whom are women. Prior to joining Chiefs for Change, Dr. Rafal-Baer was Assistant Commissioner of the New York State Education Department under Dr. John B. King. She currently sits on the national board of Blue Engine; the selection committee for the Association of Marshall Scholars; and the advisory committee for the Center for Education Policy and Research at Harvard University.
In 2020, Dr. Rafal-Baer was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Education to a four-year term to the National Assessment Governing Board. Dr. Rafal-Baer graduated summa cum laude from the George Washington University with a B.A. in Psychology and holds a dual M.S. from CUNY: Lehman College in Special Education and Childhood Education. She also holds a Master of Philosophy in Education Research and a Ph.D. focused in comparative education policy from the University of Cambridge, where she was a Marshall Scholar.
John’s experience has spanned government, philanthropy, and the private sector working on a range of issues including technology, immigration, education, and economic mobility. He current serves as a fellow at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and as an advisor to the Walton Family Foundation. He is also a visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute working on COVID-19 and Opportunity Zones. He also hosts the TechEnabled podcast at AEI. John previously served as a domestic policy advisor in the White House, Deputy Policy Director to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, and Director of Educational Technology at the U.S. Department of Education.
He co-founded the strategic advisory firm Whiteboard Advisors, served as a senior program officer at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and most recently was the VP of Policy for Governor Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education. John is on the board of directors for Zearn Math. He also serves on advisory boards for the COVID Collaborative, Pope Francis’ Scholas Occurrentes, the Aspen Institute’s Future of Work, the Tech Talent Project, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, Hypothesis Studio, and Kenzie Academy. He is a Pahara-Aspen Institute Fellow and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
He has served as a reviewer for the TechStars Workforce Accelerator, Communities Thrive Challenge, Adult Literacy XPrize, the $1 Billion Wage Gain Challenge, and Fannie Mae’s Sustainable Communities Innovation Challenge. John has served on the DC board for the social innovation fund Indego Africa and the Data Quality Campaign. He co-chaired the Aspen Institute’s Task Force on Connected Learning and was an ex-officio member of the U.S. Department of Education’s Higher Education Commission. He is also an alumnus of the American Council on Germany Young Leaders Program.
Dr. Chad E. Gestson has served as Superintendent of the Phoenix Union High School District since the fall of 2015. Since then, Phoenix Union has launched six new schools, from a Gifted and Talented Academy to a Digital Academy to the Phoenix Coding Academy. Under his leadership, Phoenix Union has seen tremendous increases in graduation rates, scholarship totals, and college matriculation rates.
Gestson is a member of Chiefs for Change, an alum of The Broad Academy at the Yale School of Management, and a former Teach For America corps member. He also served as a leadership director, high school principal, middle school principal, elementary school assistant principal, and classroom teacher. Prior to his public education career, Gestson was a commercial construction superintendent.
He holds a B.A. from the University of Washington, an M.Ed. from Arizona State University and an M.Ed. from Northern Arizona University (NAU), and an Ed.D. from NAU, where he was named the Outstanding Doctoral Student of the Year.
Dr. Penny Schwinn was sworn in as Tennessee’s education commissioner on February 1, 2019. As commissioner, Dr. Schwinn is committed to building on Tennessee’s momentum over the last decade, and plans to continue to accelerate growth through the state’s strategic plan, Best For All, which focuses on high-quality academics, student readiness and supports, and the state’s strong current and future educators.
Coming from a family of educators and committed to increasing access to an excellent education for all children, Commissioner Schwinn began her work as a high school history and economics teacher. She previously served in a number of roles in education including Chief Deputy Commissioner of Academics, an Assistant Superintendent, a school principal, and an elected school board member.
Commissioner Schwinn earned her Bachelor of Arts from the UC-Berkeley, her Master of Arts in Teaching from Johns Hopkins University, and her PhD in Education Policy. She is the proud parent of two daughters in Tennessee public schools, and a son not yet school age.
Cameron White, Partner at NewSchools Venture Fund, invests in learning solutions that empower Black, Latino, and low-income students. He has over 10 years of experience at the intersection of racial and socioeconomic equity, student learning, and technology development. During this time, Cameron has supported more than 100 early stage education technology ventures, through philanthropic capital as well as strategic feedback and guidance related to equitable student impact, research-based product design, fundraising, and sustainable growth.
Cameron was on the founding team at co.lab, an accelerator focused on game-based learning. He began his career at E.L. Haynes Public Charter School in Washington, DC, helping to align out-of-school time offerings with the school’s academic and social missions. Cameron received a Master of Arts in Instructional Technology and Media from Teachers College of Columbia University, completing his master’s thesis on ed tech equity. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from Princeton University, writing his undergraduate thesis on environmental design and early childhood development.
Cameron is co-author of publications including “An entrepreneur’s guide to using research to improve products and measure impact” and “Developing education products with equity at the center”, and has been featured as a speaker at SXSWedu, iNACOL, and SOCAP. He is a yoga teacher specializing in accessibility, trauma-sensitive instruction, and teaching in schools and juvenile detention facilities.
Yutaka Tamura is the founding Executive Director of nXu, a non-profit organization whose mission is to catalyze and equip youth and adults to explore, articulate, and pursue their purpose by developing social & emotional learning skills while also fostering equity and inclusion.
Yutaka also founded and led Excel Academy Charter Schools, a nationally recognized network of public charter schools based in Boston, Massachusetts. After launching Excel and before returning to the organization, Yutaka served as the Chief Operating Officer and Senior Advisor for Relay Graduate School of Education. Yutaka is also a Co-Founder of UP Education Network, an organization focused on school transformation, and served on UP’s board during its founding years.
Yutaka spent the first several years of his career as a management consultant at The Parthenon Group, a strategy consulting firm. Yutaka earned his B.A., magna cum laude, from Amherst College, and earned his MAT with distinction from Relay Graduate School of Education.
Kelly Knoche (she/her) is the founder of The Teaching Well, a multi-leveled systemic approach to bringing wellness into school systems. In this role she has mentored hundreds of teachers, led trainings to thousands and has built an organization committed to living its values of honest communication, somatic embodiment and transparency.
By building skills and focusing on educator stress resilience and communication, The Teaching Well has saved school districts two million dollars in attrition related costs. She brings a deep love for people and a clear vision for organizations to embody their values in ways that reach their students and staff while achieving their goals.
Cynthia Robinson-Rivers is the Head of School at Van Ness Elementary where she and her staff are successfully implementing a maker-centered approach to instruction that emphasizes socio-emotional learning.
Before Van Ness, Cynthia directed teacher retention and recognition for DCPS and prior to this Cynthia led the DCPS master educator program during the inaugural year of its teacher evaluation system. She holds a B.A. in Communication and Art from Stanford University, M.A. in Education from George Washington University, and EML from the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University.
