Ari Gerzon-Kessler

Ari Gerzon-Kessler

Ari Gerzon-Kessler leads the family partnerships department for the Boulder Valley School District in Boulder, Colorado. He is also an educational consultant working with schools and districts committed to forging stronger school-family relationships.

Ari has been an educator since 2000, having served as a principal and bilingual teacher in the past. His educational experiences have allowed him to work in a variety of low- and high-performing schools and affluent as well as predominantly low-income schools. Ari is a certified Integral Facilitator® and has led several trainings at the intersection of family partnerships, social-emotional learning, and cultural responsiveness.

In 2006, Ari was a recipient of the Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund, and in 2013, while he was principal, his school received the Governor’s Distinguished Improvement Award. His leadership efforts to strengthen partnerships with underrepresented families and dismantle unjust practices were featured in Education Week in 2015. Ari regularly presents at national and international conferences on Family and Educators Together (FET) teams and other innovative family partnership best practices.

Ari is the author of Money Fit: Six Steps to Financial Well-Being and coauthor of Have No Career Fear. He was a contributing writer to The Five Dimensions of Engaged Teaching. His writing has been featured in a variety of educational publications, including Educational Leadership and Principal Magazine.

Ari received a bachelor’s degree in African-American studies from Wesleyan University and a master’s degree in instruction and curriculum from the University of Colorado Boulder.

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