Paul Koehler

Project Director, WestEd

Paul Koehler is the Senior Director of Leadership Development and Outreach for WestEd. In that role, he works with WestEd’s CEO to support leadership development in WestEd’s Comprehensive Centers and works directly with state education leaders. He also facilitates the WestEd Board’s External Relations Committee.

Koehler previously served as Director of the West and Southwest Comprehensive Centers, which provided assistance to chief state school officers and their staffs in Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico.

Previously, Koehler served as Education Advisor to Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano. He also served as Associate Superintendent of the Arizona Department of Education. Prior to that, he was a district superintendent and assistant superintendent for 16 years and a classroom teacher for 10 years.

He received a BS in business management from C.W. Post College, an MS in elementary education from Brooklyn College, and a PhD in elementary education and curriculum development from Arizona State University.

Sheila Arredondo

Senior Program Associate, WestEd

Arredondo supports the Arizona Mayors Education Roundtable and the Region 13 Comprehensive Center. She began her career as a biology instructor at the University of Colorado and sports science service coordinator for USA Swimming. Over the years she has developed expertise in career readiness and pathways, inter-organizational collaboration, project management, process improvement, stakeholder engagement and strategic planning, policy analysis, and technical assistance that strengthens organizational capacity to implement and sustain education initiatives.

Since 2007 she has led Comprehensive Center projects on rigorous pathways to college and career. In this capacity she facilitated a regional collaborative of state education agency representatives who direct postsecondary readiness initiatives. Her leadership helped this group develop and strengthen state efforts to support school counselors, implement individualized learning plans, and adopt performance-based graduation requirements. Arredondo has an AB from Occidental College, an MBS from the University of Colorado, and a PhD in higher education and public policy from the University of Denver.

Kris Kurtenbach

Founding Partner, Collaborative Communications

Kris Kurtenbach is a trailblazer in education equity communications. With three decades of proven success in strategic communications, Ms. Kurtenbach helps spearhead change through strategic communications for nonprofit leaders, philanthropists, government officials, education entrepreneurs and educators. With expertise in communications strategy and implementation, facilitation and moderation, and strategic and organizational coaching, she has helped to create seven national and community-based education nonprofits. Ms. Kurtenbach helped to create networks of mayors working for education improvement in two states—California and Arizona—the only such existing networks nationally. She regularly works with leaders to help them achieve result-oriented communications.

Kurtenbach has a Master’s degree in education policy and administration from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She holds a Bachelor’s of Science degree in magazine journalism and a Bachelor’s of Arts degree in literature from the University of Kansas.