Ari Gerzon-Kessler

Ari Gerzon-Kessler

Ari Gerzon-Kessler leads the family partnerships department for the Boulder Valley School District in Boulder, Colorado. He is also an educational consultant working with schools and districts committed to forging stronger school-family relationships.

Ari has been an educator since 2000, having served as a principal and bilingual teacher in the past. His educational experiences have allowed him to work in a variety of low- and high-performing schools and affluent as well as predominantly low-income schools. Ari is a certified Integral Facilitator® and leads trainings at the intersection of family partnerships, social-emotional learning, and cultural responsiveness.

In 2006, Ari was a recipient of the Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund, and in 2013, while he was principal, his school received the Governor’s Distinguished Improvement Award. His leadership efforts to strengthen partnerships with underrepresented families and dismantle unjust practices were featured in Education Week in 2015. Ari regularly presents at national and international conferences on Family and Educators Together (FET) teams and other innovative family partnership best practices.

Ari is the author of Money Fit: Six Steps to Financial Well-Being and coauthor of Have No Career Fear. He was a contributing writer to The Five Dimensions of Engaged Teaching. His writing has been featured in a variety of educational publications, including Educational Leadership and Principal Magazine.

Ari received a bachelor’s degree in African-American studies from Wesleyan University and a master’s degree in instruction and curriculum from the University of Colorado Boulder.

---

Presentations by Ari Gerzon-Kessler

Ari is a seasoned educational coach, experienced facilitator, and a dynamic keynote speaker. He presents and coaches individual schools and districts to enhance their efforts in the following areas:

• High-leverage strategies that help educators develop stronger relationships and communication with families and propel student learning
• Foundational strategies to launch and sustain highly effective Families and Educators Together school-based teams or similar collaborative structures that bring together educators and underrepresented families
• Proven family engagement practices to increase attendance and reduce chronic absenteeism rates
• Profiles of schools that have utilized family partnership best practices to transform their school communities and increase family and student engagement
• Relationship-centered home visit trainings to support educators in implementing this impactful school-family partnership practice
• Mini-trainings on how to make existing school events for families more meaningful and fulfilling for all stakeholders (e.g., parent-teacher conferences, Back to School Night, etc.)
• Trainings on how to more effectively facilitate meetings, gatherings, and teams that bring together diverse stakeholders