Leaders from Bellwether's Strategic Advising practice will be integral to participants SGI experience. Below, find more information about the project leadership's background and experiences in supporting organizations like yours.

Bill Durbin, Academic Strategy Senior Adviser

Bill Durbin is a Houston-based academic strategy senior adviser at Bellwether Education Partners. Bill has worked in the education field over the past 18 years, focusing on school leader management, school performance management, and network growth strategy. Prior to joining Bellwether, Bill served as the Chief of Schools at DSST Public Schools in Denver, Colorado. In this role, he was responsible for managing 12 schools and 5,000 students, leadership pipeline management, leader development programming, and the yearly school planning processes.

Previous to DSST, Bill served as YES Prep Public Schools' Head of Schools from 2009-2014, where he was responsible for identifying, training, and managing school directors at the thirteen YES Prep schools serving 8,000 students in Houston, Texas. As part of this work, Bill also served as a steering committee member for the SKY Partnership, a district-charter school partnership between Spring Branch Independent School District, KIPP Public Schools, and YES Prep Public Schools. Before managing the YES Prep portfolio of schools, Bill spent 2002-2009 co-founding and leading three schools: YES Prep North Central, YES Prep East End, and YES Prep Gulfton. Bill started his career in 1998 as a founding teacher at YES Prep Southeast.

Bill is a Pahara-Aspen Education Fellow. In 2010, he earned a master’s degree in Business Administration from Rice University as part of the Rice Entrepreneurship in Education Program. Bill also completed a master’s in Educational Administration and Supervision at the University of Houston and a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Illinois.

Stephanie Itelman, Principal

Stephanie Wilson Itelman is a principal with Bellwether Education Partners in the Strategic Advising practice area. Stephanie has deep expertise in the charter sector, having worked with a variety of growing charter school organizations including UP Education Network, Rocketship Education, RePublic Schools, Philips Education Partners, and Herron High School. She has helped them address critical questions about topics including their growth, organizational structure, financial model, and greenlighting.

Prior to joining Bellwether in 2013, Stephanie was the chief of staff at Aspire Public Schools. At Aspire she also held the role of director of Growth and Strategy, where she led the development of new schools and facilities across California. Previously, Stephanie worked at an Oakland-based start-up charter management organization focused on school turnarounds. Stephanie earned her M.Ed. and MBA at Stanford University and holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia. Stephanie is Vice Chairperson of the board of directors of Roots Elementary in Denver, a 3-year-old charter school. She lives in Denver with her husband and daughters.

Tresha Ward, Academic Strategy Senior Adviser

Tresha is an academic strategy senior adviser at Bellwether Education Partners. Prior to joining Bellwether in 2017, Tresha spent eight years in a number of leadership roles with the KIPP charter school network. Most recently she was a managing director of schools for KIPP NYC, where she focused on school turnaround. She was also the school leader development director for the KIPP Foundation. In this role she provided support to all of KIPP’s sitting school leaders either through the creation of leadership development programming, as an instructor for instructional leadership, or through direct coaching. Additionally, Tresha supported chief academic officers and school leaders in KIPP’s Texas regions on academic strategy implementation. In 2010, she opened KIPP Legacy Preparatory School, an internationally focused school in Northeast Houston. Tresha grew Legacy to ~800 kids in grades pre-K through 3rd. Legacy now serves 900+ students in grades pre-K through 4th. Tresha has also served as a leadership coach for school leaders and independently consulted with organizations and schools for several years.

She attended Vanderbilt University for her bachelor’s degree and Stanford University for her master’s degree and started her education career as a Teach For America Houston corps member. She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband.

Mary K. Wells, Co-Founder and Managing Partner

Mary K. Wells is a co-founder and managing partner at Bellwether Education Partners. Mary led the growth of the organization to over 60 professionals. She also leads the Strategic Advising practice, which focuses on supporting education reform organizations with growth strategy, assessing partnership opportunities, market assessment, business planning, organizational development, and implementation planning. Recent clients include YES Prep Public Schools, Match Graduate School of Education, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, City on a Hill, Denver School of Science and Technology, and Achievement First.

Mary has worked as a private sector consultant, an investor, and a nonprofit executive. From 2005 to 2007, she designed, launched, and managed the Texas Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Initiative for the Texas High School Project. She also managed the New Schools portfolio for the Texas High School Project, which included investments in high-performing charter schools and school developers Mary was a manager and consultant with Bain & Company for over seven years. During that time, she advised Boston Public Schools on the creation and implementation of small learning communities within their comprehensive high schools on a pro bono basis. She holds a B.A. from Harvard University and an MBA from Stanford University and is a first-generation college graduate.