Katie Cryan has spent over three decades serving public-school students and their families. She is currently a consultant and coach in Seattle Public Schools, supporting school leaders across the district in the areas of mental health and restorative practices. Prior to this role, Katie has served as a teacher and school leader at both the elementary and middle school levels.
Katie is a servant leader who strives to listen deeply. Her core value is human connection,
the energy shared between people when they feel seen, heard and valued. This meaningful connection allows educators and families to co-create learning spaces based on collaboration, growth and a fierce advocacy for identity affirmation, spaces that allow all community members to feel a sense of inclusion and belonging, spaces that allow feedback to be given and received without judgement. These are all critical elements in the learning process for students, and for adults. Increasingly, as Katie has learned and unlearned and attended to her own racial identity work, she understands the impact that this connection and inclusive school culture have on the mental health and wellbeing of all stakeholders and how foundational an ingredient wellness is to the regulation required of authentic learning and academic success.
Throughout her career, Katie has been a learner of the student-centered and trauma-informed strategies that BELONG Partners help educators develop. In each of the schools she served, Katie advocated for staff-wide training that allowed the school adults to feel this meaningful connection, which allowed them to model and extend this connection to their students, providing them with consistent and predictable adult responses to behavior.
Katie is honored to join the BELONG Partners Board of Directors in support of this work, which is so aligned with her core values.
Katie holds a BA in communications from Washington State University, a Masters in Education Administration from Western Washington University, and Teaching Certification and aDoctorate in Equitable Education Leadership from the University of Washington. She is also a National Board Certified Teacher in Early Literacy.
When she is not working, Katie loves gardening, reading, doing puzzles with her dad, playing golf with her son and spending time in the mountains with her husband and pup.