Educator. Systems builder. Practitioner of sustainable, human-centered change. I've spent 25 years across every level of public education trying to understand what sits underneath the problems we keep trying to solve, and building infrastructure to address it.
Hi, I’m Heather Van Benthuysen
Founder & CEO, EngagEd Collective
Doctoral Candidate, Education Leadership, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Superintendency Fellow, Watertown School District, Watertown MA
Currently:
Founding Executive Director, Department of Student Voice & Engagement, Chicago Public Schools
Executive Director, Department of Social Science and Civic Engagement, Chicago Public Schools
Civic Engagement Manager, Chicago Public Schools
High School English Teacher, Instructional Coach, Licensed Principal, Curriculum Designer
Previously:
Core Values:
I am driven by a love of learning, people, community, and the natural world. I believe because our greatest challenges are interdependent, so must be our responses. I believe the work of change must honor the humanity of everyone it touches. And I believe schools are the most powerful civic institutions we have, if we design them to be.
“Enacting and Theorizing Civic Deliberation Through a Research-Practice Partnership" by Tatiana Geron, Heather Van Benthuysen, and Meira Levinson, Oxford University Press, May 2026 (forthcoming)
Publications:
Leadership Focus
The impact of school systems as learning organizations with democratic purpose, and measurable, sustainable, impact at scale. I’m interested in the ways institutions help or hinder the development of people's capacity to think together, lead through complexity, and shape communities. In particular, how structures, relational conditions, and mental models interact across every level of a school system, and what it takes for public education to fulfill its calling as the foundational institution for democratic life in a rapidly changing world.