About Chris Ferris, CEO and Founder
Chris Ferris has spent 37 years in public, private and charter schools: 12 years teaching K-12, 5 years as a professor of education, and 20 years leading schools.
In 2005 she founded Our Community School, a K-8 charter school in Los Angeles that grew out of a group of parents who wanted something better for their children. She led it until 2013, and in 2009 it was named California’s Charter School of the Year for its progress in narrowing the opportunity gap. Next, she served as the founding principal of Reach Charter School in Denver from 2015 to 2016. She then served for ten years as the Executive Director of Highline Academy Charter Schools, a two-campus ECE-8 network serving a diverse community in Denver. Highline Academy Southeast was named a National Blue Ribbon School in 2020, and both campuses earned the top rating of green on the Colorado state performance framework in 2024, 2025 and 2026.
Chris has consulted for charter schools in Denver, Los Angeles and nationally, and is a certified HR investigator. She currently serves on the Rise Up Community Charter School board and has previously served on the GALS Denver and Radical Arts Academy of Denver boards.
Her personal essays have appeared in Chalkbeat, Literary Mama, the Los Angeles Times, the Providence Journal and the Bank Street College Occasional Paper Series. She lives in Denver with her husband; their three adult children are scattered across the globe pursuing their passions.
Available to order December 1: It’s Our School! A Memoir
Leadership, Motherhood, & The Education System
How does a frustrated parent end up opening a school? In It’s Our School!, Chris tells the story of rallying a group of Los Angeles families to start their own charter school, and shows how education policy plays out for real students in real classrooms. It’s a hopeful look at what school can be when students, parents and educators truly work together.
Testimonial
In my capacity as UCLA/School Management Program’s external mentor to the school I watched Ms. Ferris shepherd the charter from an underachieving, faltering school to a vibrant, exciting successful learning environment and the Charter School of the Year award.
— Roberta Blatt, Former Faculty of the UCLA School Management program