Keynote Speaker: Kara H. Ahmed, Ed.D.
Kara H. Ahmed, Ed.D.
Kara H. Ahmed, Ed.D., is the principal of Living for the Young Family through Education (LYFE)—a New York City Department of Education program that provides high-quality early childhood education to the young children of student parents, making it possible for student parents to stay on track toward obtaining a diploma while transitioning into parenthood. As principal, Ahmed oversees all fiscal and programmatic aspects of LYFE, which includes more than 200 staff members, more than 1,200 student parents and their children, and more than 30 locations across the five boroughs.
Ahmed consistently ensures the work necessary to guarantee LYFE's mission and vision is actualized. She leads a dynamic and extraordinary team, composed of school leaders, central office staff, and school-based personnel, who together have implemented a research-based early childhood curriculum and assessment system, expanded early childhood education to include children from six weeks old to three- and four-year-olds to foster seamless transitions for families, and developed an ongoing and systematic professional development plan for all program staff focused on capacity building, strengths-based approaches with families, and teaching and learning. Under Ahmed's leadership, LYFE has shifted to being an inclusive program focused on ensuring both student mothers and fathers graduate from high school, are college and career ready, and are consistently enhancing their parenting abilities, all while their children are provided with rich learning experiences to support their own growth and development. She has developed and implemented program-wide reforms on an operational and transformative level, resulting in improved professional practice as well as improved educational options and outcomes for student parents and their children. Ahmed actively participates in city agency and mayoral workgroups and committees related to education, human services, and social advocacy, to influence policy and enhance coordination of services in LYFE and across New York City.
Ahmed has taught internationally and nationally, both at the middle school and early childhood education level. She received the New Jersey Governor's Teacher of the Year Award in her second year of teaching. Ahmed has served in multiple educational leadership positions in which she has managed public school and private provider preschool programs, implemented state-funded preschool education policy and programming in over 25 public school districts across New Jersey, and led a district-wide implementation of preschool inclusion to guarantee children with identified disabilities were naturally integrated into general education preschool classrooms. She has served as a consultant to a diverse group of school districts on developing and sustaining high-quality preschool and kindergarten programs, effectively meeting the needs of Dual Language Learners, and capacity building for both school leaders and classroom teachers.
In addition, Ahmed has taught graduate courses at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her 26 publications include Examining the Early Launch to Learning Initiative (ELLI), New Jersey's effort towards creating a universal preschool system (Ed.D. Dissertation, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, 2009).
Ahmed received the 2015 Champions for Children Organizational Leadership Award from the Center for Children's Initiatives (CCI), and she was presented with the 2011 Outstanding Dissertation Award by the National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators/Pearson. Ahmed co-presented a Featured Session at the 2016 National Institute for Early Childhood Professional Development and delivered the keynote address at the 2017 NYC Infant Toddler Conference.
Ahmed has a bachelor of arts degree in history from Fordham University, and a master of arts degree in education leadership and a doctor of education in education policy from Teachers College, Columbia University.
