As a Chief Portfolio Officer at Transcend, Katie co-leads our school design portfolios in the work to grow our impact with school partners, increase access for communities to go on design journeys, and create system conditions to support these journeys.
She has been a proud member of the Transcend team since 2017, and is thrilled to be able to work with visionary school and system leaders to reimagine learning environments in pursuit of both extraordinary & equitable outcomes and experiences. Most recently, she launched and helped to grow the organization’s Whole Child portfolio to support more than 30 schools across the country in adopting and adapting an elementary school approach to student well-being that was built and codified in partnership with the team at Van Ness Elementary School in Washington, D.C.
Katie began her career in education as a 7th-9th grade mathematics teacher and teacher coach in Chicago and Washington, D.C. She was an analyst at the D.C. Office of the State Superintendent and then spent nearly a decade leading national teacher preparation design teams at Teach For America. In this role, her team led the organization’s efforts to build a content-specific training model and reshaped the role and strategy of a national design team to align with a research- and experience-based understanding of how adults learn and develop. In her role as an independent consultant, Katie has enjoyed one-on-one coaching to help leaders focus their energy on their essential work; build skills, habits and systems to lead inclusive, high-performing teams; and develop and operationalize strategy to maximize impact.
Katie was an Education Policy Fellow at the Institute for Educational Leadership and holds a Master’s Degree in Teaching Secondary Mathematics from National-Louis University and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Mathematics and History from St. Olaf College. Katie lives in northern Virginia with her husband and her two sons.
Continue Your Journey
Leaps for Equitable, 21st-Century Learning
Transcend’s Leaps for Equitable, 21st-Century Learning describes the key ways we believe the student experience must change so that schools can prepare all young people to thrive in and transform the world.
Transform Learning with Community-Based Design
Community-based design is a collaborative and local process that brings together young people, educators, administrators, caregivers, and experts to redesign learning. It goes beyond traditional school improvement initiatives by involving the entire community in reshaping...
