Kate Wright serves as Director of the Region 15 Comprehensive Center (R15CC) at WestEd. Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, the R15CC provides capacity-building technical assistance to state education agencies (SEAs) in Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah.
Wright brings extensive SEA experience to her role at WestEd, having served in several key senior positions. She has expansive expertise and deep content knowledge in organizational leadership, federal program implementation, educator recruitment and retention, standards and assessment, and English learner (EL) pedagogy. Having served as a classroom teacher and site-level administrator prior to transitioning to state leadership, she brings a practitioner’s perspective to education policy. She has worked collaboratively with numerous national organizations (e.g., ASCD, CCSSO, University of Phoenix) on large-scale initiatives, including educator recruitment and retention, standards implementation, principal training, teacher leadership, and EL instruction and assessment.
Prior to joining WestEd, Wright served as Chief of Staff for the Arizona Department of Education (ADE), spearheading several statewide initiatives, including federal COVID recovery efforts, a teaching and learning framework, school choice programs, and strategic state and federal funding work groups. Prior to being Chief of Staff, Wright served as Deputy Associate Superintendent and Associate Superintendent at ADE, leading the Office of English Language Acquisition Services and the Division of High Academic Standards for Students, where she oversaw all academic content areas and programs serving unique populations, including EL students, migratory students, students experiencing homelessness, and students in the foster care system.
She holds a BA in Secondary Education from Salisbury University and an MEd in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) from Grand Canyon University.