Hiring and retaining great teachers, school leaders, and staff is key to KIPP DC's success. As Chief Talent Officer, I worked to improve our talent systems and launch new initiatives to make our value proposition to employees more clear and transparent. My responsibilities include: - Managing a team of 30 individuals responsible for talent acquisition, benefits and compensation, talent data systems, staff retention, and talent development for 1,400-person organization. In 2022 annual survey, 95% of 25 principals and academic leaders agreeing that the talent team provides excellent customer service and is a trusted partner.- Introduced new retention efforts for staff, including stay conversations and Intent to Return survey, which have helped the organization retain talent and plan for hiring. 89% of principals agreed or strongly agreed retention efforts were helpful and supportive. - Built a transparent, competitive compensation program for entire organization, including research, stakeholder engagement, robust decision-making model, communication, and implementation. In a 2022 annual culture survey, teachers ranked teacher compensation the highest in terms of satisfaction compared to other organizational aspects such as professional development, learning environment, and school operations.- Updating promotions process for regional staff to be clearer and more transparent. The percentage of staff who agreed promotion policies are transparent doubled in two years.- Strengthened HRIS system by committing staff and resources. In four years, Workday transitioned from having poor quality data and being a system that staff did not trust to being the backbone of payroll, talent data reporting, timekeeping, and budgeting.

I returned to DC education to support CEO and founder Susan Schaeffler and President Allison Fansler as to scale KIPP DC systems as we grew to be the largest charter network in DC with over 7,500 students and 1,400 staff. KIPP DC consistently ranks among the highest performing school systems in DC based on student achievement. My Chief of Staff responsibilities included: - Initiated the first hiring process for vice principals, including engagement with principals, crafting communication for candidates, and leading internal decision-making throughout the process. In two years, we increased the percentage of school leaders who felt career advancement was transparent from 46 to 70 percent. - Served as one of four leaders who created KIPP DC’s first Diversity Equity and Inclusion Council, which went on to become a team of full-time employees who have impacted hiring, curriculum development, and executive decision-making. - Managed the five-year strategic planning process, including managing consults from Bain & Company, planning and leading stakeholder engagement and communications, and finalizing the plan with approval from the Board of Directors.

I supported CEO and founder Diane Tavenner to transition Summit Learning, SPS’s unique model for personalized learning, to be its own, independent non-profit and to strengthen SPS's schools. My responsibilities included: - Led planning for new Summit learning non-profit, which included new Board of Directors, new governance model, and new org chart for 40 employees. I worked with Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), which was a major funder, to transfer intellectual property and technology of the online learning planform to the new organization. Finally, I designed a new compensation and benefits structure for the new employees to launch the new non-profit. - Led strategic planning process for SPS's leadership team during the transition. - Steer charter renewal process for two SPS schools in California.

After almost a decade with DCPS, our new Chancellor asked me to be his Chief of Staff. We maintained and grew many important DCPS initiatives while weathering several challenges, including clarifying graduation requirements and Chancellor transitions. My responsibilities included: - Led strategic planning process, including surveys, focus groups, and town halls with community and staff, leadership team decision-making and prioritizing sessions, and crafting communications plan of new five-year vision. DCPS has 50,000 students, which is half of public school students in the city, and about 8,000 staff. - Leading the Chancellor's senior leadership team, which advised on vision, strategy, key initiatives, and budget. - Leading a re-organization of 800-person Central Office to align with priorities of the new strategic plan and designed performance management system to ensure alignment with mission and priorities. - Managing school system crises internally as well as externally in coordination with the Mayor's Office.- Directly managing a team of 25 individuals who were responsible for communications, inter-governmental affairs, performance management, and policy for DCPS.- Led transition of Chancellor Antwan Wilson, including communication, engagement with community and stakeholders, management of the organization, and coordination with Mayor’s office and City Council.

Chancellor Kaya Henderson wanted someone who knew DCPS well to lead her reformed communications team to share the stories of the fastest-improving urban school district in the country. In DC's large local media market, I created strategic communications plans for new initiatives, student enrollment increases, study abroad, and student achievement gains. We had over 20 positive media stories from major outlets annually, and we grew our social media presense to over 50,000 followers. My responsibilities included: - Conceptualizing the new team and hiring individuals who are responsible for media relations, speech writing for the Chancellor, creation of marketing materials, website maintenance, and digital engagement.- Managing crisis communications around issues such as school security, facilities and operations. - Serving as member of DCPS’ senior leadership team, which advises on vision, strategy, key initiatives, and budget.

In addition to IMPACT, our Human Capital team improved teacher hiring, created a school leader residency program, developed best-in-class professional development for teachers, and strengthened our Human Resources systems. I was promoted to support the office as the Chief of Staff to Jason Kamras, Chief of Human Capital. Our team was over 150 full-time employees, with a budget of over $20 million. My responsibilities included: - Managing our annual planning process, including setting and tracking goals. - Managing our budget, including our federal Race to The Top grant. - Leading collaboration across human capital teams, including teacher hiring, principal hiring, teacher development, principal development, and human resources. - Aligning our human capital work with other offices, such as teaching and learning, finance, operations, academics, and community engagement.

After graduate school, I knew I wanted to go back to DCPS, where leaders were making big changes to improve the quality of teaching for DC students like the students at I taught at Powell Elementary School. One of those changes was creating IMPACT, DCPS' performance management system for all staff, which led to improved teacher performance and student achievement gains. Through IMPACT, the district shared a clear vision for teaching excellence. Teachers were observed, received feedback, and set goals unique to their students. I led our IMPACT Operations Team, which was responsible for implementation of this new system. My responsibilities included: - Designing and implementing communications and training for school leaders, teachers, and staff about the system, which led to 100% completion in the first year. - Designing and maintaining a database to store all IMPACT data, used for calculating end-of-year scores and long-term analysis of staffing trends. - Implementing performance pay for staff, including pay increases, and bonuses. - Managing team of 6 individuals who were responsible for the IMPACT platform and database, school leader support, and helpdesk.

I supported over 30 first and second year Teach For America corps members who were teaching in elementary and foreign language classrooms. I observed them teaching, provided feedback, and coached them on classroom engagement and instructional practices. I also planned and facilitated professional development sessions on goal-setting, assessments, and lesson planning.

I taught fifth grade for two years at Powell Elementary school. I was responsible for language arts, math, science, and social studies. Half of my students both years had special learning needs. At the time, we divided classes by gender, so I taught all boys for both years. For both years, my class mastered 80% of the DC math standards, and my students grew over 1.5 years in reading.