Kelli Cannon

Kelli has over 22 years of experience spanning classroom teaching, school leadership, and organizational leadership roles. Her career began in South Georgia, where she spent ten years teaching and leading in Valdosta City Schools, laying the foundation for her lifelong commitment to equity, community, and social justice.

After relocating to Los Angeles, Kelli brought that same passion to leadership roles at Alliance College-Ready Public Schools and Aspire Public Schools, where she focused on educator effectiveness, instructional leadership, talent management, organizational development, and program supervision. She has held roles including Interim Director of Educator Effectiveness at Alliance’s Home Office and Regional Director of Instructional Effectiveness at Aspire’s Los Angeles Regional Office. Additionally, she has served on national teams for the Department of Education’s Teacher Incentive Funds, Bill and Melinda Gates’ The College Ready Promise, and as a California Representative for the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD).

Today, Kelli serves as Director of the teacher residency program at Aspire Public Schools, a partnership with Alder Graduate School of Education. In this role, she helps shape a community-centered pipeline of new teachers, many of whom are Aspire alumni (20%; 2025) and/or former staff members (60%; 2025) at our Aspire schools. The program blends graduate coursework, credentialing, and intensive mentorship, with a focus on anti-racism, social justice, sustainability, and retention in the educator workforce. 

A proud first-generation college graduate, Kelli holds degrees in Early Childhood Education, B.A., Organizational Leadership and Adult Learning, M.S., and all but the dissertation in her doctoral work in Curriculum and Instructional Leadership, Ed.S. She believes deeply in the power of equitable, inclusive education that supports liberating communities and is committed to building joyful, community-rooted ecosystems that honor and empower every student and educator– and works every day to build systems and programs that reflect that vision.