Connect with Ashley
Having seen the impact of Opportunity Culture roles first-hand as a multi-classroom leader in Charlotte, NC, motivates me to support Opportunity Culture design with other districts for their students and teachers. Every child deserves an excellent teacher, and excellent teachers deserve to be compensated for their extended reach.”
Ashley Williams
Consulting Manager and Senior Innovation Manager
Ashley Williams is a consulting manager and senior innovation manager with Public Impact, where she leads a team of consultants who co-design Opportunity Culture models with districts, resulting in sustainable career pathways to attract and retain excellent teachers, while dramatically improving student outcomes. She also leads Public Impact’s innovation team, focused on strategic processes to expand the Opportunity Culture initiative to more schools nationwide. Before joining Public Impact, Williams served as a data specialist for the accountability office within Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, and had been one of the first in the country serving in the Opportunity Culture Multi-Classroom Leader role. In that role, she led a team of English language arts teachers with 370 students, and under her leadership, the team’s students dramatically increased their end-of-grade reading scores, which contributed to the school achieving the fourth-highest reading growth index out of more than 160 schools in 2014–15. Williams also previously worked for the Piedmont Triad region of Teach For America as the director of teacher leadership continuum. She holds an M.A. in educational leadership from Queens University of Charlotte, and a B.A. in broadcast journalism from the University of Kentucky.
Example projects: Williams’ recent work includes leading Opportunity Culture design and implementation in the North Carolina districts of Wilson County Schools, Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, Nash County Public Schools, and Hertford County Public Schools, and in Virginia’s Winchester Public Schools. She also led and supported similar work in Chicago Public Schools and the districts of Midland and Ector County in Texas. In addition, she cultivated professional learning experiences with the school district of Palm Beach County, Florida, and for turnaround school leaders with the Tennessee Department of Education.