Rhonda “Nikki” Barnes is executive director of KIPP Massachusetts, where she leads charter schools in Boston and Lynn serving predominantly Black and Latino students. She also serves as president of the Massachusetts Charter Public Schools Association, providing statewide leadership on behalf of charter public schools. Under Nikki’s leadership, KIPP Massachusetts has achieved post-secondary outcomes that significantly outperform national benchmarks for students from historically marginalized communities. Between 2024 and 2025, approximately 78 percent of graduating students enrolled in bachelor’s degree programs, reflecting sustained access to four-year college pathways.

A self-described warm demander, Nikki is known for building strong instructional cultures and developing teachers and leaders in service of student success. Since joining KIPP Massachusetts in 2013, she has held several leadership roles and became the organization’s first Black woman executive director in 2020.

Teaching and public education are Nikki’s life’s work. She brings more than 25 years of K–12 classroom, school, and district leadership experience across diverse educational settings, including rural Gaston, North Carolina; suburban Chesapeake, Virginia; and the cities of Boston and Lynn, Massachusetts. Deeply committed to the craft of teaching, Nikki earned National Board Certification in 2000, becoming the first Black practicing classroom teacher in Virginia to achieve this distinction.

Nikki holds degrees from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and Virginia Commonwealth University. She is the proud mother of two adult children: a daughter, Adrianna, a mathematics learning specialist, and a son, Jordan, who is pursuing his MFA in poetry.