Erin Patterson, Director of Education Initiatives at SchoolHouse Connection, is a former teacher turned education policy strategist originally from South Carolina. With nearly 14 years in education, she has gone from the classroom to positions in federal policymaking, philanthropy, advocacy, and policy consulting. Erin spent five years as a classroom teacher in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and Newport News, Virginia, where she taught high school Government & Economics and World History, served as the School Improvement Team co-chair, wrote social studies assessments for the district, and oversaw the creation and facilitation of a student-led peer court. After moving to Washington, D.C. Erin began her career in education policy at the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development (OPEPD). Here she assisted senior advisors on various initiatives to expand equitable federal education policies. She then moved to the Community Foundation of the National Capital Region, serving as Education Fellow, and spearheading a series of reports and site visits for education and community partners in Prince George’s County, Maryland. She then transitioned to the American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF), a national non-partisan non-profit organization. As a Program Associate at AYPF her portfolio was largely centered on surfacing policies and best practices across states to serve youth transitioning out of foster care and youth involved with the juvenile justice system. Most recently Erin was a Senior Policy Associate with EducationCounsel, a Washington, D.C. mission-based consulting firm, where she worked with clients across the country to strategically advance more equitable policies from early childhood to postsecondary education. She led and supported efforts to align birth-3rd grade policies across multiple states, provided strategic capacity to organizations advocating for the restoration of Pell grants to incarcerated individuals, and facilitated multiple funder collaboratives committed to advancing resource equity, whole child policies, and racial equity in education.