The Education Imperative for Parents, Educators, and Community Members

Charles Wright, Jr. is Founder and CEO of the System Transformation Accelerator, an emerging nonprofit organization committed to helping school district communities redesign their educational and student service offerings into a coherent ecosystem where significantly more students and adults thrive. Charles has more than 25 years of experience helping leaders of complex multi-site organizations achieve transformational results that have a social impact, fueled by his passion for helping families and professionals connect to the people, resources, and tools they need to help their children succeed in and out of school. Charles previously served as Deputy Superintendent of the Seattle Public Schools. In this role, he was responsible for improving the systems that support the day-to-day operation of the district and overseeing the implementation of the district's strategic plan. Under Charles' leadership, the system increased school leader satisfaction with services to the next performance tier in 10 programs, adopted and implemented the Seattle Preschool program, stabilized and improved Special Education Services, raised funding to double support for strengthening an aging technology infrastructure, and more. He has extensive operational, planning, project management, and continuous improvement experience gained from previous roles with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wright Associates, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Denver Public Schools, School Evaluation and Management Services, Duval County Public Schools, Ford Foundation, and the Cleveland Foundation. In these organizations, he participated in a wide range of innovative local and national initiatives intended to bring about change within K-12 school systems and institutions of higher education. Charles completed his Bachelor of Arts in Finance at Morehouse College, his Master of Arts in Elementary Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and his Juris Doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania. Charles and his wife Stephanie live in Washington with their sixteen-year-old daughter where he spends his extra time cycling and swimming.