OUR COLLABORATORS

Kate Hayes Hoffman, MS

STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS & SCHOOL INNOVATION

Kate Hayes Hoffman has dedicated her professional career to facilitating educational transformation through innovative school models and nonprofit collaboration. She strives to think differently about how we reach young people and works to design schools that serve all students in an equal and just way. With 16+ years of broad experience as an educator and within nonprofits, her expertise includes innovative school research, design, and implementation; partnership planning and management; school and nonprofit development initiative design; professional development event design; school support services; educational technology; and strategic communications and branding.

Kate began her career as a Philadelphia educator and a founding school counselor at School of the Future, a public high school partnered with the Microsoft Corporation. There she cultivated and managed a broad network of strategic partnerships; facilitated student and family access to technology; and designed post-secondary readiness initiatives. Kate established the School of the Future Partnership Foundation, a 501(c)3 nonprofit with a mission to support the curricular and technological needs of the school. Through this effort, Kate acquired experience in establishing a nonprofit entity, school development, and aligning stakeholders to increase external funding for 1:1 student technology.

Kate works with the Building 21 Network of Competency-Based Education (CBE) schools. She has supported their experiential learning partners, which strengthen the schools’ approach to developing their students’ agency and passions. Kate manages the Building 21 Summer Institute, an adult development conference for CBE educators. Additionally, she supports their content marketing and communications through blogging, stakeholder engagement, and curating open educational resources.

Kate co-founded an educator professional development organization, What If Partners, LLC, and taught as adjunct professor for the Villanova University Honors Program, facilitating a service-learning course titled “Public Education and Policy Reform” for honors students. She is a graduate of Villanova University, having earned both her BA and Masters in School Counseling. She is a proud mom of three children, who keep her focused on the power and potential of education.