Sarah Swanson is the Director of Policy at Colorado Succeeds, where she uses her more than 15 years of policy experience across the federal, state, and local levels to lead the organization’s PreK-12 policy work. Since joining the Succeeds team in 2022, she has focused on ways equity should be centered across our education system, including through career pathway programs, school finance, and transportation systems.
While working in Washington, DC, she worked with the House Education and Labor Committee, working on the reauthorization of the National and Community Service Act and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. During nine years working for Leadership for Educational Equity, a nonpartisan education leadership organization, she helped state and local leaders develop policy solutions to issues ranging from preschool to charter schools to teacher policy and racial equity. She also led a team that supported over 2,000 teachers as they began careers in policy and advocacy.
She holds an MS in Education Policy from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA in Policy Studies from Dickinson College.
Community Involvement
Sarah has served in leadership roles with Impact100 Metro Denver, a women’s collective giving group, for five years. When her children were at Montview Preschool, she served as the Inclusion Committee Chair and on the Governing Commission. The work Sarah does now is a direct result of the volunteer work she did as a child, and she’s looking forward to her children getting older so they can join her in getting involved in the community.
Why Sarah Loves Colorado
As a lifelong East-Coaster from New Jersey, Sarah loves seasons but didn’t love the fast-paced life of the East Coast. She loves that she can have seasons (even if a few of them exist in a single day), an impactful job, and live a more balanced life in Colorado.
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