Allison Leslie

Allison Leslie is an area superintendent for Aspire Public Schools, a charter management organization in the Memphis Region. In 2012, she relocated to Memphis to open Aspire’s first region outside of California and partnered with the Achievement School District to turn around schools in the bottom 5% of the state.  Currently, she is operating four schools in Memphis and serving 1,600 students with plans to grow to at least eight schools over time.  Allison started her career with Teach for America in Houston, TX in 1999 after graduating from University of California at San Diego.  She worked at a middle school with a high percentage English Language Learners and started a multi-age newcomer program to support language development during adolescence.  In 2001, she moved back to California where she went to work for Aspire Public Schools as a teacher and then later became the principal of Aspire East Palo Alto Charter School after earning her Master’s degree in Educational Leadership from University of California at Berkeley.  Under her leadership, EPACS outperformed all of the schools in the local district and exceeded the state average in test scores. In 2010, Allison helped start the Aspire teacher residency program designed to develop great talent for the organization and continues to partner with the program, now called Alder Graduate School of Education.