Dr. Amy Wooten
Executive Director of Higher Education Partnerships and Special Projects
Amy Wooten joined NIET in October 2020 and serves as executive director of higher education partnerships and special projects. In this role, she focuses on developing service offerings to enhance the effectiveness of teacher and administrator preparation programs, fostering partnerships with preparation programs and the districts they support, supporting education preparation policy discussions, and providing leadership for special projects to support the organizational mission.
Prior to joining NIET, Amy served as vice president of policy at Deans for Impact where she worked with ed prep leaders and policymakers to develop state-level policy focused on ensuring all students have access to well-prepared teachers. Previously, Amy served as executive director for educator licensure and preparation at the Tennessee Department of Education. In that role, she led the development of a new accountability model for educator preparation providers, facilitated a new model for partnerships between providers and districts, and managed the implementation of a federal grant to provide high-quality training for cooperating teachers.
Early in her career, Amy worked at the U.S. Department of Education overseeing grant programs supporting alternative preparation programs, and as an elementary teacher for Kannapolis City Schools in North Carolina. She received a bachelor's degree from Wake Forest University, a master's in politics and education from Teachers College at Columbia University, and an Ed.D. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.