Jennifer Steiner

Community Schools Coach

jen@cslx.org (she/her)

For thirty years, Jennifer Steiner has been an equity-centered educator – first in the classroom as a teacher then as an instructional coach, school principal, leadership coach and assistant superintendent of schools. She is deeply passionate about supporting current and future educators, administrators, and systems to question their practices in order to interrupt systemic inequities baked into our system and achieve equity for the each and every.

As a school principal for over twelve years, she supported her staff in questioning how their identity impacted the ways in which they set up systems unintentionally perpetuating inequities in their classrooms and supported them to create culturally responsive lessons through regular observation, coaching, and collaboration with their peers. With families, she focused on creating a community school environment where families saw themselves as true partners in their student’s education, and each and every student felt seen and heard.

As the executive director of professional growth and development in curriculum and instruction, she worked tirelessly to set up alternative paths to teaching focused on removing barriers to earning a credential and increasing the diversity and representation of teachers in SFUSD. Through her supervision of the multilingual departments, teacher leadership, new teacher support, and curricula teams, she supported new and veteran teachers to question their practice and supported the curriculum teams to design equity-centered materials and professional development for the district.

Now in her role as assistant superintendent of middle and K8 schools in SFUSD, she continues to examine ways that leaders can foster belonging, consistency and coherence in their schools so that each and every student, family and educator thrives.

She holds a Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education and Spanish from The Pennsylvania State University, a Master of Arts in Language and Literacy Acquisition and Elementary Education as well as a Reading Specialist degree from San Francisco State University. She recently completed an Educational Doctorate from East Carolina University’s International Cohort in Educational Leadership in an educational leadership where she studied how school leaders can cultivate beloved community in their schools