For nearly 15 years, Chris has served students and families in both Atlanta, Georgia and Brooklyn, New York as a teacher, assistant principal, and most recently, as a principal. Chris is a results-oriented leadership coach and performance manager who builds capacity in school and district (network) leaders to hold a bar of excellence and meet adaptive challenges. Additionally, he is an experienced senior leader who invests deeply in talent development and strong systems as a mechanism to replicate success and create conditions for adults and students to thrive.
Mr. Ford’s superpowers/areas of expertise include:
- Math Curriculum & Instruction
- School & Team Leadership (Team Functionality & Org Health)
- Instructional Strategy & Coaching
- Design & Delivery of Professional Learning
Chris’ career started in Atlanta, Georgia as a 5th grade teacher. After serving the Atlanta community for two years, Chris moved to New York for graduate school and started working with Uncommon Schools. It was there that he was trained in data-driven instruction and was ultimately able to support his cohort of scholars in achieving Top 1% results, across NY State, in both ELA and Math across multiple cohorts/years!
After six years in the classroom, Chris moved into school leadership, and, for the last few years, has served as a school leader in Brooklyn, NY. Chris has supported schools in achieving Top 1% results, across NY State, in math, as an assistant principal and principal. On the Spring 2022 Algebra I Regents Exam, Chris’ school ranked Top 1% in the state with 96% of scholars achieving a Level 3+ on the exam, outperforming the network, city, and state by 35%, on average. Most recently, Chris’ school was ranked #1 in Math and #2 in ELA for academic growth, moving the school to #1 in the network for ELA performance and in the Top 10% for Math performance across the network. Equally as important to the school’s academic gains, was the strong organizational health results, both within the network (Top 5%) and nationally, as measured by the Gallup Employee Engagement Survey. Most notably, Chris’ work with his leadership team led to org health results in the 95th percentile nationally (Top 5%), with indicators tied to growth and development in the 99th percentile (Top 1%).
Chris is a lifelong educator and is committed to furthering equity and excellence in schools. Given his experiences as an undergraduate student at Morehouse College and graduate student at Columbia University, he understands the transformative power of education and is eager to support schools (and systems) in helping students (and staff) achieve more than even they thought possible!
When Chris is not working, he enjoys reading, traveling, and spending time with his family and friends in the NJ/NYC area!