Meet The InnovateEd Team
We are so fortunate to have a deeply experienced and incredibly passionate group of educators on our team who share in the common goal of building collective capacity to ensure student success.
The InnovateEd team takes a yearly commitment to delivering exceptional client services through extraordinary leadership and teamwork.
Lynn Hodson
Co-Founder & Chief Operations Officer
Lynn Hatton Hodson's entire professional career has revolved around helping both students and institutions to accelerate their respective achievements. For 15 years, Lynn led The Princeton Review of Southern California whose operation was widely regarded as the most successful in the country. Soon thereafter, she founded Adelante Educational Services, a company solely focused on increasing student support in underserved communities. Lynn’s gift is to develop sensible, effective and mutually beneficial partnerships with the end goal of helping students be successful whether they attend a four year university or go directly into their career. Her role in InnovateED revolves around visioning, relationships, operations and all business support. Lynn has served on several state and county educational committees as well as a two term Trustee at one of California’s largest school districts. She lives with her husband, a retired USMC Lt Col and current CBO, has two birth children pursuing their graduate degrees, and three adopted school-aged children.
Jay Westover
Co-Founder & Chief Learning Officer
Jay Westover has provided leadership training and school improvement consulting in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Education, state departments of education, colleges, educational service centers and school districts across North America. Over the past decade his work has focused on developing capacity of school district systems to close the gaps of college and career readiness. The Four Disciplines of Systems Leadership been the centerpiece of state-wide, regional and local partnerships including the Association of California School Administrators, more than a dozen County Offices of Education and over 100 school districts. Jay’s role at InnovateED is lead advisor for state-level, county-wide and local school district partnerships, client executive leadership coach, and guiding expansion of consulting services. His passion is working along-side leaders to simplify the complexities of developing school district capacity and coherence. For over 20 years Jay has had the privilege of serving educators as a leadership consultant and formerly in the roles of county office administrator, school administrator and teacher. Jay is an active supporter of community-based projects, and is a member of several organizations that promote the success of at-risk youth. He is married with three children.
Danelle Almaraz
Chief Impact Officer
Danelle has over 30 years experience in education at all levels. During her tenure, she has acquired expertise in educational leadership, mathematics, and support of ELLs and students with special needs. As such, she is a strong student advocate and filters all actions through the lens of student achievement and equity.
Chris Steinhauser
Executive Coach
Chris Steinhauser served as superintendent of Long Beach USD from 2002-2020 - one of the most respected, and longest serving, urban superintendents. Long Beach is California's fourth largest district, with about 70,000 very diverse students. Chris served in the district for over 39 years and earned a national reputation for improving student achievement and closing achievement and opportunity gaps. Under his leadership, LBUSD earned the Broad Prize for Urban Education and was listed on McKinsey & Company's world leading school systems - AND top 3 in the United States. While 70% of students are on F/R lunch, 13 of of his high schools were among the top 12% in the U.S. News & World report. Truly believing in access, Mr. Steinhauser helped to create the Long Beach College Promise which became a nationwide model by providing two years of free college to every student that enrolled in a community college upon high school graduation and supported student success therein by implementing industry-based pathways systemwide. Chris is a true equity warrior and we are incredibly fortunate to have him as part of our team.
Kira Shearer, Ed.D
Systems Coach
With a B.S. in Education and a M.S. in Counseling, Kira is a strong advocate for educating the whole child. This passion for student learning has led her to take on a variety of roles during her 25 years in education. She has served as a classroom teacher, district coach coordinator, and administrator for two County Offices of Education. In her work for the Riverside County Office of Education and later the San Diego County Office of Education, she worked closely with district, school site, and community stakeholders to design multi-year initiatives, including Common Core State Standards implementation, Master Plan for English Learners, systems of support for student learning, and professional learning opportunities for teachers, coaches, and administrators. Additionally, Kira has been involved in a number of state and national projects related to curriculum development and review. She has served on the California Instructional Materials Adoption Panel for ELA, and is currently a member of Achieve Inc.’s EQuIP (Educators Evaluating the Quality of Instructional Products) national review panel. She has worked closely with California State University system in the role-out of their Expository Reading and Writing Course, and in 2014 designed and wrote a unit of study for CalFEMA on Natural Disasters, integrating both ELA and the NGSS. Kira is passionate about transforming education to meet the needs of our dynamic, 21st century learners, and inspiring teachers to incorporate 21st century strategies into their classrooms.
Tom Armelino
Executive Coach
Tom Armelino recently joined our team after serving the last 36 years as a leader at the national and state levels, most recently as the Executive Director of the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence (CCEE). His focus there was on systemic change such that all students within California received a quality education. Prior to CEEE, Tom led the National Association of School Administrators, served as superintendent of Shasta County for 11 years, and as a school superintendent in two other districts. Tom spearheaded a county-wide College and Career Initiative that was widely recognized for changing the trajectory of student's lives. As a superintendent, many of his schools were recognized for achievement and were visited by leaders across the state and nation. Tom is also bringing his experience of being an Ass't Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction to our partner schools.
Don Ward
Systems Coach
Don is a Senior Consultant of Leadership and Learning and has been supporting central office administrators, principals, leadership teams, and teachers as a member of Team InnovateEd for ten years. Previously, Don served for twelve years as a Consultant, Workshop Leader, and School Visits Team Leader for International Baccalaureate® candidate schools. He was an elementary, middle, and high school Principal and served as a Project Director in the Corona-Norco Unified School District. Don was also a Professor for the graduate studies programs in teacher education at the University of Redlands.
Angela Macias, Ed.D
Systems Coach
Dr. Macias has been a career educator for 15 years who has taught every level from 6th grade to graduate school. After completing her Bachelors degree and credential in English she taught secondary language arts, reading, English, ELD, and several electives. Throughout her career she became a mentor teacher, professional development trainer, researcher, and college instructor. Along with serving schools with Innovate Ed, Dr. Macias is currently a tenure track faculty member at California State University Dominguez Hills in the College of Education where she prepares future teachers. Her areas of expertise and research lie in student engagement, funds of knowledge, and teacher efficacy. Dr. Macias also dedicates much of her free time to supporting efforts of various community programs and non profit organizations that promote equity and educational opportunities.