Core Staff

Teacher-Powered Schools is a project of Education Evolving, with the whole team contributing to the work—including coaches, ambassadors, and support staff. A few core folks hold the lion’s share of the day-to-day.

Jeff Austin

Teacher-Powered Coaching & Support Lead

Zaynab Baalbaki

Teacher-Powered Schools Coach

Carrie Bakken

MN Teacher-Powered Schools Lead

Sarah Giddings

Teacher-Powered Social Media Coordinator

Amy Junge

Director of Teacher-Powered Schools

Wendy Salcedo-Fierro

Director of Teacher-Powered Coaching

Gemma Ribant

Teacher-Powered Coordinator

Teacher-Powered Coaches

Our coaches partner closely with school teams to help them chart the path of their unique teacher-powered journey. And if this group wasn’t impressive enough, each coach is a current, practicing teacher in a teacher-powered school.

Julie Cook

Daniel Giddings

Deyonne Jackson

Skyler Primm

Taryn Snyder

Krissy Wright Quinn

Paula Zwicke

Ambassadors

Teacher Ambassadors are dedicated teacher leaders representing a diverse range of teacher-powered schools who bring their counsel, voices, resources, and influence to Teacher-Powered Schools.

A new ambassador cohort will be announced late summer 2025.

EE Staff

All EE staff support Teacher-Powered Schools work in various ways. You might only see these folks when it’s all-hands-on-deck at our national conference, but they’re always helping somewhere behind the scenes!

Hawra Alnabi

Operations Manager

Lars Esdal

Executive Director

Marcus Penny

Communications Director

Aqueelah Roberson

Policy Director

Alex Vitrella

Program Director