A Call to School Districts: Help Us Expand the Impact and Scale of the League of Innovative Schools

Kimberly A. Smith is the co-lead and chief innovation officer of the Digital Promise Center for Learner Pathway Innovations. She works in partnerships with school systems across the country in creating and sustaining Unbounded Pathways—accelerated, future-forward, responsive, co-created, credentialed pathways that enable learners to design their futures to achieve agency, well-being and economic mobility. She is a co-creator of the Digital Promise’s Collaborative Innovation model, a co-research and design methodology centered in students and communities working in partnership with school systems, industry and post-secondary to build innovative pathway solutions. Prior, she was executive director of the League of Innovative Schools, Digital Promise’s flagship network of forward-thinking school systems leaders.

Prior to Digital Promise, Ms. Smith was chief learning and innovation officer with the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), leading the innovation strategy for the global leader in youth entrepreneurship education and vice president of education at PBS where she directed the digital education strategy, including launching a national public broadcasting PreK-12 digital curriculum service in partnership with school districts. She also served as vice president of product development for Discovery Education where she led the creation of a portfolio of broadband services for K-12 schools, including Discovery Streaming and curriculum digital products. Ms. Smith began her career in education innovation at the Annenberg/Corporation for Public Broadcasting Project where she was on a team pioneering delivering college courses for credit at a distance through online and broadcast.

Ms. Smith is an Aspen-Pahara Institute fellow focused on building sustainable, values-aligned education leadership. She is co-founder of the National Charter Collaborative, a non-profit focused on supporting single-site charter leaders of color in creating quality schools. She has served on the boards and advisories including the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO), the Arts and Technology Academy Public Charter School, Catalyst Exchange, Learner Centered Collaborative, Education Reimagined, and Beach House in Washington, DC. She received her M.B.A from Johns Hopkins University and her bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the University of Colorado at Boulder.