Thandi Center

Thandi Center serves as the senior project director on the Responsive Design team at the Bank Street Education Center. Thandi has spent her career in public education and non-profit leadership with a focus on developing the capacity of teachers, school leaders, and system leaders. She also coaches high school principals as part of Bank Street’s Principal Innovation Fellowship. She has worked as an independent consultant with XQ Institute, the Urban Assembly, the District Summer Learning Network, the Deeper Learning Dozen, and Newark Board of Education. Thandi’s consulting work centers on helping school districts and education non-profits clarify and advance their strategic priorities, developing capacity and leadership across their organizations, creating systems for continuous improvement, authoring materials for aspiring educators, and anchoring equity in both process and outcomes. Previously, Thandi served as Vice President of Programs at the New Teacher Center (NTC), where she spent 10 years cultivating innovative district partnerships across New York City, Newark, and nationally. Prior to NTC, Thandi worked for New Visions for Public Schools to support the creation of dozens of new small high schools, and created human rights curricula as a contractor with Amnesty International, PBS, and Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility. Thandi began her career as a social studies teacher and school bus driver on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.