Dear Flamboyan Community,
For more than 15 years, Flamboyan Foundation has worked to transform how educators and families partner so that students succeed in school. From the beginnings of our work in DC, to the Johns Hopkins study proving the efficacy of family engagement, to serving thousands of educators and school leaders through our trainings, fellowships, and programming, evidence continues to recognize the benefits of meaningful family engagement as a successful strategy for both academic success and social belonging in school. As we face a pivotal time with schools still working to accelerate learning recovery from the COVID pandemic and continue to deepen and expand our family engagement work, we are thrilled to announce Emily Garcia as the new Executive Director of our DC office.
Last year when Emily stepped into the Deputy Director role she immediately impressed us with her strong vision for family engagement in public and charter schools across DC as well as amplifying this meaningful work around the country. Emily has established herself as a trusted and strategic leader during her three years at Flamboyan including her instrumental role in renewing and expanding Flamboyan’s flagship program, the Family Engagement Partnership (FEP), overseeing the launch of the Family Engagement Assessment Tool, and creating new products and resources for the field. It is a pleasure working with Emily as she consistently lives out and upholds Flamboyan’s core values – Catalytic Action, Equity, Impact and People. Her deep knowledge of schools and educational systems coupled with her dedicated sense of purpose inspires our team and instills confidence that she will be an excellent Executive Director forging a path to make family engagement an essential ingredient of a student’s educational experience.
As a child of a Montessori teacher and career civil servant, a commitment to public service was ingrained in Emily from an early age growing up near the Washington, DC area in Baltimore, Maryland. The product of public schools, she firmly believes in the potential and power that local communities hold to create schools where all students thrive, especially students furthest from opportunity. This commitment has held true in everything that Emily does. Prior to joining Flamboyan, Emily spent over a decade with District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS), where she redesigned the district’s teacher recruitment and selection process, served in school leadership roles and received a “Standing Ovation” award for her outstanding service and commitment to students and families. She began her education career with The New Teacher Project (TNTP), supporting new teacher pipelines in Prince George’s County, MD, and across the state of Delaware. She holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and Spanish from the University of Maryland, College Park and a master’s degree in leadership from the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University.
As she navigates this first year in her new role, Emily will focus on expanding Flamboyan’s footprint by sharing our family-engagement expertise nationwide and locally, building sustainable family engagement practices for schools and systems. She will also use this new platform to partner with educational leaders in shifting the mindsets so family engagement is recognized as an essential, whole-school activity and all families can, and must be powerful partners who fulfill the five essential roles that accelerate student success.
In the coming months, Emily will be reaching out to many of you to hear your ideas and reflections which might inform Flamboyan’s new 5-year strategic plan that she will help develop during this year. When she reaches out, we encourage you to take the time to get to know her not just as our Executive Director, but as the passionate, strategic, and inspiring person she is. In the meantime, if you are interested in learning more about our work in DC and across the United States, or if you have recommendations about how we might partner, please don’t hesitate to connect with Emily directly.
As DC Executive Director, Emily joins the two of us as well as Puerto Rico Executive Director Carlos Rodriguez on Flamboyan’s Senior Leadership Team. We are deeply committed to her success and are confident that our partners and network will appreciate the extraordinary talents and gifts Emily brings to our work. Please join us in congratulating Emily and welcoming her as our DC Executive Director!
In partnership,
Kristin Ehrgood, CEO and Board Chair
Marci Young, President and COO