Kristen Watkins serves as the Director of Personalized Learning at Akiba Yavneh Academy. In this role, she is developing systems to launch, maintain and sustain systems that will ensure personalized learning takes root from kindergarten to twelfth grade. Before this role, Kristen spent the last 14 years in Dallas Independent School District, five as a middle school English teacher and the last nine years leading district efforts to launch, scale, and sustain personalized learning and innovation district wide as the Executive Director of Personalized Learning and Innovation Sustainability. She holds a B.S. in Journalism from the University of Kansas as well as two M.Eds from Southern Methodist University in Urban Education Leadership and Teaching & Learning with an emphasis in Literacy. Kristen is currently working on a doctoral degree from Texas Tech University where she is researching the sustainability of personalized learning at both the campus and district level.