Dr. Andrea Coleman-Hill
CEO

During my tenure of more than thirty years as a teacher and administrator both at the building level and in central office levels, I have had the opportunity to participate in the development of students and staff, the improvement of cultures and climates, and the positive impact of the lives of students, staff, parents, and communities. I am passionate about the education of both children and adults. I believe that as a leader it is my responsibility to ensure that all staff members have the necessary tools to successfully educate children as well as to continue their own education as adults. These tasks have often required me to get into “Good Trouble” in the name of equity and equality, which I happily embrace for the benefit of shaping the future for kids, parents, and the community.

I have worked extremely hard as a transformational leader to empower students and families, ensure equity for all students, to always make students the first priority in all decisions made, and to professionally develop staff and coach them up to the daily challenge of educating ALL students. As such, I have designed and implemented multiple professional development sessions, developed a school transformational model that has led to positive staff and student outcomes in multiple schools, and developed a coaching survey to determine the effectiveness of coaching administrators in the areas of leadership development, self-efficacy, and job performance.

As a lifelong educator, I have always supported the development of effective leadership skills in students, teachers, parents, and administrators. As such, I actively provide support, mentoring, and coaching in an effort to advance teaching and learning. In doing this I encourage everyone to be both reflective and restorative as classroom, building, and instructional leaders; while ensuring that students always have an active voice and ownership of their education. Using classroom and school visits as a forum, I observe leadership and instructional practices in real time for fidelity of implementation and offer debriefing sessions to strategically review practices and develop actionable steps geared at improving professional practices that impact student outcomes.

Additionally, I have assisted multiple schools with establishing leadership teams for staff, students, and parents so that a consistent voice is always present from stakeholders. The implementation and accountability systems I developed support teams with monitoring academics, climate, and fiscal responsibilities so that schools and school systems are both efficient and effective while allowing students and staff achieve to their fullest potential.

In July 2018, I assumed the role of CEO at Laboratory Charter School. The organization had a history or corruption, debt, and declining academic achievement. At the time my tenure began the Charter was absorbed in both historical and current debt with no plan for payment and no credit, students were failing across the board, and the facilities were horrendous at best. With the Board of Trustee’s blessing, I mobilized the parents, students, staff and community and worked with the Charter Authorizer, the School District of Philadelphia, to embark on a mission to stabilize finances, relocate the schools to new facilities, and stabilize academic achievement. On the Spring 2019 PSSA (State Assessment) the scores stabilized and showed incremental gains. In April 2020 LAB was authorized to relocate. In July 2020 the schools relocated three small, dilapidated campuses into two new, large facilities and embarked on an aggressive expansion. In October 2020 Lab Charter was debt free with the exception of the current monthly bills. This is a credit to the Board and school community who stood firm and saw the vision through. I remain PROUD to serve LAB Charter and look forward to the organization’s continued growth.