Dr. Kelli Peterson

Dr. Kelli Peterson

Founder and Principal Consultant

Hi! I am Kelli! But, I am sure you came here to learn more about Dr. Peterson. You are in for a treat, this quick overview gives you a two for one! Being born in Flint, Michigan many would assume that I know a lot about cars—I don’t! I am the product of a General Motors family, as my mother, father, and grandmother dedicated a combined 116 years to the automobile industry. 

I am grateful for the middle class lifestyle that the automobile industry afforded my family and I, as it was a means to my family ensuring that I had the best educational options the city had to offer. At a young age, I learned the value of an educational advocate. Being raised by my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, I received a multigenerational lesson that education was important and I was a “smart cookie.” I was blessed to have my great-grandmother teach me to read at age 3, and be the room “mom” in all of my classrooms, up until it wasn’t “cool” anymore. Throughout my K-12 experience, I attended six different public schools, for no other reason than my parents guiding my educational experience to ensure that I was placed in the classrooms of teachers who would push me to excel and prepare me for college. I was the kid who used a variety of different addresses to access the best school options. I am the product of parents who pushed beyond school enrollment zones in order to choose the schools that they believed to be best for me. I am the product of school choice. 

I earned my Bachelors of Arts in Psychology from Spelman College, a Masters of Education in Educational Administration from University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, and a Doctorate of Education in Curriculum Planning from Tennessee State University. 

My commitment to both my personal education and the field of education can be traced back to the days of me “playing school,” with imaginary students, as I am an only child.  I took attendance in a spiral notebook and wrote lessons on a whiteboard that my parents had built for my “classroom.” Thus, it is no surprise that I began my career as a teacher. I have served as an elementary and middle school teacher, Dean of Students, Dean of Curriculum and Instruction, Assistant Principal and Principal across various cities, including Brooklyn, Cleveland, Atlanta, and Nashville.  

As a teacher, I watched my students experience teachers having varying degrees of expectations of their ability from class to class. I, myself, knew all too well what it was like to be judged before you revealed your intellect. I believed that it was my duty as a teacher to ensure that my students would be better than me. My high-expectations were frosted in warm-strict love, which can be seen in version one of “Teach Like a Champion.”  As a teacher, my students outcome data was a reflection of the love of learning that I fostered within my classroom: 

  • Excellence Boys, Brooklyn, NY: 1st Grade Teachersome text
    • 77% of 1st Grade students scored Mastery or above on Reading TerraNova. 
    • 81% of 1st Grade students scored Mastery or above on Language TerraNova. 
    • 77% of 1st Grade students scored Mastery or above on Math TerraNova. 
  • Ivy Preparatory Academy, Atlanta, GA: 6th Grade ELA Teacher some text
    • 100% of 6th Grade scored Mastery or above on ELA CRCT. 
  • Northeast Ohio Collect Preparatory School, Cleveland, OH: Middle School ELA Teacher some text
    • 89% of 6th Grade scored Mastery or above on ELA OAA.  
    • 77% of 7th Grade scored Mastery or above on ELA OAA.
    • 94% of 8th Grade scored Mastery or above on ELA OAA. 

Within the six K-12 schools I attended, I only had one Black principal, Mr. John Rhymes. The first principal that I worked for, Mr. Jabali Sawicki, a Black male, redefined the principalship for me, as he was young, fun, energetic, relatable, professional, and an intellect. As a school leader, I wanted to be who they were to me, to others. I walked the halls daily because I needed Black and Brown students to see a Black, young woman, that was relatable, fun, energetic and an intellect serve as their school leader. I wanted them to see themselves in me. 

Having served across each level of the K-12 education system, I understand both isolated and system level challenges. As a local system leader, I oversaw charter school accountability for the nation’s only all charter school district, inclusive of 78 charter schools. During my tenure, I strengthened accountability practices through the implementation of financial accountability measures,  created policy focused on strengthening charter school board governance, developed additional high school oversight practices, and initiated community centered authorizing practices that embedded parent, teacher, student, and community leader voice in the charter application evaluation process.

As Assistant State Superintendent, I spearheaded the Office of Equity, Inclusion, and Opportunities, with the purpose of shaping a vision and value for equity, school choice, and prioritizing the needs of  students with exceptionalities. Although my time at the Department of Education was not as long as I would have liked, some of the notable achievements that we were able to accomplish included revising state policy to embed an intentional focus on  community centered charter school authorization practices, allocated $2M towards the development of New School Choice Pandemic Response Funds which allowed for additional support for charter schools in the first three years of operation to meet the social, emotional, and academic needs of students, developed a state-level organizational structure to meet the needs of schools statewide in order to provide technical assistance and support to special education educators, allocated $1.2M to school systems to help support the cost of providing compensatory services to students with disabilities, and allocated $1M of the Governors Emergency Education Relief Funding to provide access to free mental health virtual visits for all public K-12 educators.

My K-12 professional experience has afforded me the opportunity to serve as an Adjunct Professor, shaping the minds, practice, and theory of master-level students seeking to become a K-12 principal. Having established myself as a thought leader I was named a 2015 Nashville’s Top 30 Under 30, 2019 National Association of Charter School Authorizers Leader, and 2020 New Orleans Regional Leadership Institute Cohort Graduate.

I currently serve as a Board member for the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA). I am also a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., The New Orleans Chapter of The Links Incorporated, and National Alumnae Association of Spelman College. 

While I no longer formally serve within the education system, the experiences and lessons that I have learned translate into a collection of strategic processes and practices that I employ as The Founder and Principal Consultant of The Ed.ucateD Approach. The undaunting experience of Spelman College guides my commitment to keeping The Ed.ucateD Approach a place where women lead together.

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