Kaya Henderson

Kaya Henderson
Kaya Henderson (second from right) watches as President Barack Obama signs an executive order on July 26, 2012
Chancellor of District of Columbia Public Schools
In office November 2010 – September 2016
Preceded by	Michelle Rhee
Succeeded by	John Davis (interim)

Kaya Henderson (born July 1, 1970) is an African American educator, activist, and civil servant who served as Chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) from November 2010 to September 2016.

Kaya Henderson was born in 1970 in Mount Vernon, New York, and graduated from that city's public schools.

Henderson graduated from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., in 1992. During her senior year, a friend joined Teach for America. Intrigued by why her friend would give up lucrative jobs in order to teach in inner-city schools, Henderson learned more about the organization and became convinced its goals were important to her.

In 1992, Henderson joined Teach For America, and took a job teaching in the South Bronx in New York City. Henderson was promoted to executive director of Teach for America in 1997, and relocated to Washington, D.C. In 2000, Henderson left Teach for America and joined the New Teacher Project as Vice President for Strategic Operations. While working for the New Teacher Project, Henderson returned to Georgetown University, and received an executive master's degree in leadership in 2007.

Henderson received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Georgetown University in 2012, and joined the university's board of directors in 2014.

Henderson was working for the New Teacher Project when Michelle Rhee, Chancellor of the D.C. public school system, tapped her in June 2007 to be Deputy Chancellor of the DCPS. Rhee resigned as Chancellor effective October 31, 2010, after her political backer, Adrian Fenty, lost renomination as Mayor of the District of Columbia in the 2010 Democratic primary. Henderson was named interim chancellor.Vincent C. Gray, Fenty's successor as mayor, appointed Henderson permanently to the job, and she was confirmed by the Council of the District of Columbia on June 21, 2011.