Karolyn Belcher is a seasoned educator who has served as a teacher, charter school principal, nonprofit executive, and a district and charter school system leader. She currently serves as the Chief Growth Officer at Leading Educators. Prior to joining Leading Educators, she served as the Interim Superintendent for Achievement First (AF), a nationally recognized charter network of over forty schools in Connecticut, New York, and Rhode Island.

Karolyn Belcher was the Chief Academic Officer of the Charleston County School District (CSSD). In that role, she was responsible for leading the academic improvement strategy for South Carolina’s second largest school district. This included CCSD’s curriculum adoption, professional learning, COVID recovery planning, and school turnaround in identified Acceleration Schools. Karolyn partnered with Leading Educators to support the Acceleration Schools and the implementation of new curricular materials. Under her leadership, CCSD students outperformed the state average in all state tests in 2022. By 2025 with the continued partnership of Leading Educators, CCSD was one of the few CGCS districts that was outperforming pre-pandemic achievement in both reading and math on the NAEP exam.

For over a decade, Karolyn helped build and lead TNTP. She served as TNTP’s President and oversaw all the organization’s partnerships with school systems nationwide. She was the principal of the John A. Reisenbach Charter School, one of the first three charter schools in New York State, located in central Harlem. She began her career teaching science in New Orleans as a charter corps member of Teach For America.

Karolyn has been recognized as both a Pahara-Aspen Fellow and a Broad Academy Fellow. She has a BA in Biological Science from Mount Holyoke College and an MA and MEd in Education Leadership from Teachers College, Columbia University.