Courtney Hrejsa
In recent months, I've felt more and more compelled to shine the light on some of the most amazing women I have met in various ways -- work, fellowships and training, grad schools, by sheer chance and unbelievable luck. I am proud - and I don't use that word often or lightly - to share that the idea is now a reality and will be a series of ongoing profiles. I am delighted to start with Courtney Hrejsa, who is a colleague at CPS, a Bonfire alumna and a generous friend. In speaking with her, I learn about her work in the power of play, her education in Anthropology and what brought her to the world of education, and her deep passion for teacher leadership. Ok, the last one I have known for as long as I have known her. In addition to her time with me, she has also offered to chat about modern organizational leadership structures in schools, the child welfare system and foster parenting, keeping urban chickens, and resources for white people seeking to advance their allyship practices if you are interested.
I talk to Courtney on a balmy April evening, and our conversation begins with an update about Mrs. Feathers, her usually unadventurous chicken who ran out on the street, and was rescued by the kindness of three different people, including a complete stranger who popped Mrs. Feathers back into the coop. After knowing Courtney for over two years, I can tell you there isn’t a time when we talk and the conversation isn’t both honest and hilarious.
Courtney and I met at Chicago Public Schools as part of the Talent team. In her current role as Director, Teacher Leadership Strategy & Operations, she works to shift the ways schools are organized to create opportunities for excellent, experienced teachers to lead.
I start by asking her a question that is a favorite of mine: at this moment in your life, what do you think of as your origin story? Before we dive into her response, I want to be clear: I don’t think origin stories belong only to superheroines or villains. We all have one, and while they are rarely linear and or about saving the world from aliens, they shape how we see the world and live in it.
Courtney sees her origin story as happenstance. She grew up in a household where both parents were teachers, and her father was deeply involved in the work the union did. Due to his frustrations, one of the rules was: be anything but a teacher. Courtney didn’t plan to be -- with an Anthropology major and a Master’s in Applied Anthropology, the plan was to go into international aid work. Of course, life (and economists who strayed into anthropological territory significantly) had other plans. She started a residency program in education for pre-k and k at Capital City Public Charter School in DC.
Personal life brought her back to Chicago, where she went to National Louis University for a Master’s in Elementary Education, and started working at Chicago Children’s Museum. Play was having its moment: the power of play, how it had gone away, the play crisis. This was something Courtney was deeply familiar with through her work on the out of school lives of students who were homeless or in transitional living situations in DC. Four years later, several partnerships with the school district later, and Courtney came to the Early Childhood Education team.
It’s at this point in the conversation Courtney pauses and mulls on how formative her former boss has been for her career. To see passion, drive, vulnerability and empathy modeled in action collectively is something she cherishes and applies in her own leadership practice till today. She chuckles and grimaces at the same time as she remembers a time where she used the incorrect version of a list of schools with a specific program and their compliance status. As the annoyed emails and phone calls streamed in, her boss took the hit and absorbed them. She was a leader who raised her team when they did fall, and protected them when things went wrong.
The joy of people seeing themselves as leaders and believing they matter is deeply important to her.
Through this and other work, Courtney’s drive to empower and elevate the experts we have in the classrooms and restructure the systems of power, has strengthened. The joy of people seeing themselves as leaders and believing they matter is deeply important to her. So when the role for expanding teacher leadership in schools opened up, sure it was happenstance, but of the sort that only she could have created for herself. To learn more about what her work is building towards, check out these videos, where Principals and Multi-Classroom Leaders reflect on distributed leadership and the power of teacher leaders.
A big part of her belief system is that people are essentially good and change is possible; she’s passionate about government and systems working for ALL people. She sees her future self as the connective tissue between not just the various participants in public education but also other parts of the system -- public health, housing parity, racial equity and reparations. She sees her work as not just serving part of a person’s life, but their whole self, not by departmentalized public agencies but a holistic approach.
Finally, I ask Courtney about who are some women in her life who keep her inspired and going. She talks about how her life is made possible by so many incredible women, and they include:
My mom, Leslie, who leads with her heart and truly embodies lifelong learning.
My friend, Umi, who nominated me for Bonfire (merci!) and relentlessly advocates for women.
My daughter, who lives life at full volume and makes powerpoint presentations about animals we should adopt.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who leverages her role effectively to help others, while owning her femininity AND her power.”
To wrap up, here is an act of generosity, completely in line with her: If you want to learn more about modern organizational leadership structures in schools, the child welfare system and foster parenting, keeping urban chickens, and resources for white people seeking to advance their allyship practices, Courtney will happily chat with you in between gardening, playing Barbies with her daughter, and rewatching the Great British Baking Show. Just send me a note, and I’ll facilitate the chat.