The Chicago Public Education Fund (The Fund) is delighted to announce that Fund CEO Heather Y. Anichini is the 2018 recipient of Teach For America’s Peter Jennings Award for Civic Leadership. Established in 2007, the annual award is presented to Teach For America alumni who embody the organization’s core values and whose work led to significant change for excellence and equity in education in the last year. Heather became CEO of The Fund in 2012 and led the organization to focus on principals as the key lever of change for school improvement.
“In the last six years, Chicago’s principals and their teacher teams have demonstrated a relentless commitment to ensuring that our students succeed, often against great odds,” Heather said. “This award is a reminder of the debt we all owe to them and of their everyday courage. I am honored to tell a piece of their story – of Chicago’s story – on a national stage.”
Under Heather’s leadership, The Fund has expanded to support 300 principals annually through executive leadership and retention opportunities, and gives voice to the principal perspective through its annual engagement survey.
"Heather's leadership has focused us on the idea that principals play an important role in the experience and success of our students” said Brent Gledhill, Global Head of Investment Banking at William Blair & Company and Chair of The Fund’s Board of Directors. “With her guidance, The Fund has helped make educator quality a consistent character in Chicago's story of success. This award recognizes Heather’s collaborative leadership and the focused, hard work of Heather, The Fund team and hundreds of principals in our schools every day."
Heather received the award from Kayce Freed Jennings at a reception last night in New York City. The award comes with a $10,000 prize, which The Fund will use to amplify the role Chicago’s principals play in the civic community in early 2019.
Please see here for the full Teach For America press release.
