Karen Morris has been involved in the field of education in Chicago for forty years. She has served in the Chicago Public Schools since 1964 as a teacher, reading coordinator, guidance counselor, assistant principal and principal. Karen retired from the Chicago Public Schools in 2001, and helped establish the Scaling Up Best Practice model for SLI, where she continues to serve as Co-Director for the program.

As the Principal of the Maria Saucedo Scholastic Academy from 1985 to 2001, Karen led school improvement efforts that resulted in substantial increases in student achievement in both reading and mathematics. The scores on reading comprehension, as measured by the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, increased from 23.6% at or above national norms in 1991 to 55.5 % in 2002. Math scores, using the same measure, increased from 32.9% at or above national norms to 64.9% in 2002. Karen attributes much of this success to the implementation of high-quality teacher and parent development programs that were key to Saucedo’s improvement efforts.

In the sixteen years that she was a principal, Karen acted as a mentor for new principals in the LIFT (Leadership Initiative Transformation) program and a coach for aspiring principals through LAUNCH (the Leadership Academy and Urban Network for Chicago). She also served was a probation manager for schools that were not meeting system-wide goals in reading and mathematics. As a retiree, she continues to mentor new principals in the LIFT program and is an adjunct professor with National Louis University in the Elementary Education Teacher Preparation program.

Karen has received several awards for her service as a principal and peer-leader. She received the Outstanding Elementary Principal Award in 1987, the Whitman Award for Excellence in Educational Management in 1990, the Principal of Excellence Award in 1993, the Master Principal Award in 1996 and the School Leadership Award in 1997.

Karen Morris earned a B. S. in Elementary Education from Western Michigan University and an M. Ed. in Instructional Leadership from the University of Illinois-Chicago. She has also done additional post-graduate work in Instructional Supervision through the University of California-Los Angeles. Karen is currently working toward national certification as a principal mentor through the National Elementary Principals Association. She expects to complete the certification in June, 2005. Karen has contributed articles, reviews, and research to a number of journals and other professional publications, and is a co-author of School Leadership in Times of Urban Reform (Erlbaum, 2001).