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Audience in Lecture

FELLOW

TOM BOASBERG

DIRECTORY |  FELLOW PROFILE

TOM BOASBERG

TITLE 

head of school

ORGANIZATION

Singapore American School

BIOGRAPHY

Tom Boasberg serves as superintendent of 4,000-student Singapore American School, starting July 2019. SAS is one of the world’s largest, most diverse, and academically innovative international schools. At SAS, Tom has focused on student wellness and academic growth, expanding teacher leadership opportunities, redeveloping the school campus, and strengthening the school’s work around diversity, equity, and inclusion. Prior to joining SAS, he taught educational leadership at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Tom served for 10 years as superintendent of the 94,000-student Denver Public Schools (DPS), stepping down in October 2018. As superintendent, Boasberg led dramatic improvements in opportunities and outcomes for Denver’s students. During his decade in leadership, the district's graduation rate increased by 28 percentage points, the number of students of color graduating high school and going to college more than doubled, and the district's dropout rate dropped by half. Denver developed the nation's largest teacher leadership initiative, opened more than 80 new district-run and charter schools, and was recognized for the strong collaboration among its district-run and charter schools. The Denver Public Schools were the focus of a Harvard Business School case study on innovation in education. Before joining DPS, Tom served in Hong Kong and Denver as global head for corporate development for Level 3 Communications and also served as legal advisor to the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, DC. He began his career as a secondary school teacher at a low-income school in Hong Kong’s New Territories and worked as a legislative aide in the Hong Kong legislature. Tom graduated Summa Cum Laude with a B.A. in History from Yale College and with Distinction from Stanford Law School. At Yale, he was awarded a Harry S. Truman Scholarship.

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