Katherine Westerhold
Principal
KW Strategies
Katherine Westerhold is a consultant with expertise in both PK-12 and higher education policy, research, and strategy. A primary focus of her work is supporting charter schools with charter renewal. Through this work, she has developed a toolkit of tools to help charter leaders tackle their renewals effectively, served as a coach and accountability partner to numerous school leaders during renewal, and provided tactical support to schools up for renewal. In addition to this, Katherine has led the design and implementation of new system-wide policy initiatives aimed at improving outcomes for students, and she has advised non-profit sector leaders on policy and entry into new geographic markets. Prior to consulting, Katherine served as Director of Policy and Government Affairs for Relay Graduate School of Education, a multi-state institution of higher education. In that capacity, she played a key role in launching five new sites across the country, securing public and private fundraising, obtaining regulatory approvals, building community partnerships, establishing new site operations, and designing sustainable financial models for new campuses. Katherine also led the Relay’s advocacy strategy, identifying policy issues of importance for the institution, and leading the institution’s advocacy and outreach at both the federal and state levels. Prior to her time at Relay, Katherine worked with the New Jersey and Louisiana Departments of Education. In New Jersey, Katherine played a key role in the design and roll-out of the State’s new teacher evaluation system. In Louisiana, she served as Chief of Staff for the Office of Talent, designing and implementing a variety of educator-focused initiatives, focusing largely on the design, integration and roll-out of the district-facing teacher evaluation data system used to collect data from districts and report outcomes. Katherine started her career with The New Teacher Project, supporting school improvement in post-Katrina New Orleans.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katherine-westerhold-209898738/