Kerry Swarr is CEO of BloomEd Group, a consulting group that helps equity focused education organizations grow their impact through business development, organizational change and public policy advocacy to build anti-racist systems designed for all, together. She has worked on a variety of projects for organizations such as BookNook, Kindred, MindMatch, Possip,Prince George’s County Early Childhood Advisory Council, Teaching Lab, and Urban Teachers.
From 2010-2020, Kerry was a founding member of the leadership team to grow Urban Teachers to the second-largest teacher residency in the country, training teachers in Baltimore, DC and Dallas. She served as the Director of Human Capital and developed the organization’s recruitment and selection process increasing the cohort size from 39 to 324 from 2010 to 2018 and recruit cohorts with between 52-58% people of color each year. She led a virtual recruitment/sales team of 13. She also expanded national partnerships to grow its talent pool.
Kerry was named Chief Growth Officer in 2015. She led expansion to Dallas which included regulatory work, hiring site staff, developing an advisory board, and school partner cultivation.
In July 2019, she was named Executive Director for Participant Experience and Partnerships. She was responsible for building the organization’s alumni strategy, developing teacher supports such as reducing the barrier of Praxis/PACT through Urban Teachers programming and strategic partnerships.
Before joining Urban Teachers, she worked directly for 3 CEOs over 6 years at Baltimore City Public Schools, serving on the leadership team working on efforts to expand pre-k and institute “Fair Student Funding.” Before joining City Schools, she served on the Gates-funded HS Reform Initiative at the Fund for Educational Excellence and served as staff to the Education Affinity group with the Association of Baltimore Area Grantmakers.
Beginning in 1997, she spent 5 years with Maryland Lt. Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, working on K-12 and Higher Education policy and juvenile justice reform. She started her career as a Governor’s Policy Advisor helping to start the Live Near Your Work Program and as staff to the Public School Construction Program. She has her B.A. from Dartmouth College and her M.A. in Public Policy from Georgetown University. She started her EdD in Education Policy and Leadership at American University in August 2020. She lives in the greater Richmond, VA area with her husband and two teenage daughters. She is on the board of Podium RVA and on the Advisory board of SCAN RVA. She also volunteers with GripTape, ScholarMatch and weekly at a local food bank.
“Throughout my career, I have always known that times of crisis can also be times of disruption and transformation. Here we are again with what many are calling a double pandemic—of COVID and systemic racism. I believe from tragedy can come transformation. I want to use this time help redesign education to meet the needs of students, families and communities that have for too long been overlooked and not given any power to sit at the table. I believe in the mission of The Open System Institute.”