5 in 5: Krystafer Redden, Rhode Island Department of Education’s Associate Chief of Staff for System Transformation

Results for America Fellowship Alumni give five answers in five minutes. This month, we caught up with Krystafer Redden, Associate Chief of Staff for System Transformation for the Rhode Island Department of Education.

1. Summarize what you do and how you do it.
   Working in the Ocean State, I’d like to hope that I’m both a lighthouse-keeper and a coxswain for the challenging but essential work of improving schools and transforming districts into more efficacious and affirming places to learn, to work, and to grow. I do this first and foremost through a focus on relationships formed through deep, authentic partnership; an abiding belief that communication, context, and systems do, in fact, matter greatly; and by keeping a keen eye on data and evidence from growing bodies of research focusing on what actually works for kids, teachers, and communities.
2. Share something exciting that you’re working on.
   For the past sixteen months, most of my “excitement” has focused on directly supporting our agency’s response to COVID-19, focused primarily on operations and resources — specifically on the federal government’s Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER Fund) I, II, and III funding and on the Rhode Island Department of Education’s Learning, Equity & Accelerated Pathways (LEAP) Task Force. However, more directly, our Rhode Island Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) State Plan mandates school redesign for schools that are persistently identified for four or more years as low-performing. Supporting the process of translating the policy construct that I helped to conceive and articulate into processes and guidance for implementation that codifies what school and district redesign looks, feels, and sounds like in Rhode Island is an incredibly exciting opportunity I have been privileged to be able to continue to work on.
3. Tell us one thing you learned from someone else during your RFA Fellowship.
   Given how many gifts the RFA State Education Fellowship gave me, it’s incredibly difficult to identify just one thing; I found great power and partnership, support and solace, from all my fellow-Fellows. In our shared community, I also found greater assurance that I belong in this work. But, if pushed, I recall a taxicab conversation with Oklahoma’s Dr. Brook Meiller wherein she made a compelling case that passionate advocacy for the kids and communities we serve is not wholly antithetical to the strategic, careful work we are all engaged in at the nexus of politics, evidence-based policy making, and education. It was an important, personal conversation for me at the time, but reflecting back on it now, I recall it as a conversation that feels perpetually relevant.
4. If you could wave a magic wand and have any data or evidence, what would it be?
   During this COVID-19 moment, most of my data wishes are related to the children and families I am privileged to serve in this pandemic. Particularly, I believe we as a sector could benefit from more regularly seeing education and public health data in sustained conversation with one another, as well as leveraging this opportunity to promote a renewed, sustained focus on social-emotional and mental health needs of students, families, and educators. Whether during COVID or after, in terms of evidence I remain persistently interested in descriptive work (though it is rarely rewarded in academic settings), as well as work that focuses relentlessly on three questions — (1) what works, (2) for whom, and (3) under what conditions — because implementation matters, and it matters immensely.
5. What’s the [pick-your-adjective] job you’ve ever had?
   The most glamorous job I’ve ever had was working with the gala events team at a large civil rights nonprofit in Washington, D.C. I interned at the organization during my undergraduate years, and maintained strong relationships with staff such that they would bring me back to D.C. annually for their largest fundraising event, or I would meet them in communities across the country to support local fundraising efforts. From setting up pipe-and-drape, tablescapes, and step-and-repeats in order to transform large cavernous spaces into glitzy experiences, to stage-managing behind the scenes or shadowing talent for the evening, each gala event we executed as a team — including one where the talent told me I should move to Los Angeles and be her personal assistant — was an unforgettable experience working to advance equal rights for all.

Krystafer Redden participated in Results for America’s State Education Fellowship.