“Do your best every day and do what is best for your students.”
Dr. Emily Workman is an accomplished educator, instructional leader, administrator, mentor, and consultant whose career spans more than 27 years of service to students, teachers, schools, and educational communities. With experience across public and private education, higher education, classroom instruction, faculty development, instructional coaching, and school administration, Emily brings a comprehensive understanding of how successful learning organizations operate. Her career has been grounded in a consistent commitment to helping people grow, strengthening instructional practices, and creating environments where educators and students have the support necessary to succeed.
Emily’s professional journey began in the classroom, where she developed the practical foundation that continues to shape her leadership philosophy. During her extensive tenure with Ezell-Harding Christian School in Tennessee, she taught English before advancing into increasingly significant leadership responsibilities. Her ability to understand the needs of students while collaborating effectively with fellow educators ultimately led her into school administration. As Middle School Principal, Emily directed day-to-day operations encompassing academic leadership, teacher evaluation, student discipline, and organizational priorities while serving as a member of the broader school leadership team.
Her leadership responsibilities expanded further when she became Director of Faculty Development at Ezell-Harding Christian School. In this capacity, Emily designed professional development opportunities for PreK-12 educators, addressing instructional priorities as well as the effective integration of technology. She mentored teachers through classroom observations, professional growth conversations, and the modeling of instructional and classroom-management strategies. Her participation on STEM and technology committees also gave her opportunities to evaluate institutional needs and contribute to decisions regarding educational innovation and implementation.
Emily subsequently brought her experience to John Overton Comprehensive High School within Metro Nashville Public Schools, where she served in classroom teaching, instructional coaching, and administrative leadership capacities. As an instructional coach, she partnered directly with educators to increase instructional rigor, observed classroom practices, delivered actionable feedback, and collaborated with curriculum leaders to provide ongoing professional development. She also worked extensively with Multi-Tiered Systems of Support, assessment administration, data analysis, collaborative planning, faculty development, school communications, accreditation activities, and community engagement initiatives.
Her progression to Assistant Principal further broadened Emily’s organizational leadership experience. She provided leadership for an academic academy and the Social Studies department, conducted formal teacher evaluations, facilitated collaborative planning, supported intervention programs, analyzed educational data, communicated with families, contributed to graduation planning, and managed special initiatives on behalf of school leadership. These responsibilities strengthened her ability to operate at the intersection of strategy and execution, translating institutional objectives into practices that teachers, students, administrators, and families could understand and implement.
Today, Emily continues to remain directly connected to the classroom as an English teacher at Brentwood High School, where her work has included English I and II Honors and Advanced Placement Language and Composition. In addition to teaching, she collaborates with English teams to align curriculum scope and sequence, develops common formative assessments, participates in student-support processes and data meetings, and provides leadership to fellow educators. As a team lead, she has also guided newer teachers in developing standards-aligned lessons, allowing her to combine decades of experience with a continued commitment to mentoring the next generation of education professionals.
Emily’s influence extends beyond K-12 education into higher education, professional learning, and educational scholarship. She has served as an adjunct professor with Lipscomb University, instructing graduate students in areas including classroom management and secondary literacy practices. She has also contributed to educational scholarship through her doctoral dissertation and collaborative writing. Among her publication-related accomplishments is contributing to chapters of Planning for Teaching Success by Jonathan Ryan Davis and Maureen Connolly, reflecting her ability to translate practical educational experience and professional knowledge into resources that can benefit other educators.
Her academic preparation reinforces the depth of her professional experience. Emily earned a Doctor of Education in Learning Organizations and Strategic Change from Lipscomb University, a Master of Education in Administration and Supervision from Middle Tennessee State University, and a Bachelor of Arts in English from Lipscomb University. She also completed a certificate in Instructional Coaching and holds professional Tennessee credentials in secondary English education and K-12 administration. This combination of doctoral study, leadership preparation, instructional expertise, and decades of hands-on experience enables her to consider organizational challenges from the perspectives of both frontline practitioners and senior educational leaders.
Throughout her career, Emily has developed particular strengths in education, training, instruction, mentoring, consulting, teacher development, educational leadership, curriculum alignment, classroom management, professional development, and organizational change. She understands that sustainable improvement requires more than developing a strong strategy; it requires earning trust, communicating expectations, supporting people through implementation, and evaluating whether initiatives are producing meaningful outcomes. Having served as a teacher, principal, assistant principal, instructional coach, faculty development leader, and university instructor, she brings an unusually broad perspective to conversations about learning, leadership, and organizational effectiveness.
Emily is particularly interested in opportunities where her educational and leadership experience can contribute at the board or advisory level. After decades devoted to students, faculty, schools, and educational organizations, she has reached a stage in her career where she can dedicate meaningful time and perspective to organizations seeking experienced guidance. She believes she has much to contribute to the education and training sectors, particularly organizations addressing instructional effectiveness, professional learning, leadership development, educational innovation, teacher support, and student success. Her board value is rooted not simply in longevity, but in having experienced educational organizations from multiple levels and understanding how strategic decisions ultimately affect the people responsible for carrying them out.
At the center of Emily’s professional philosophy is a straightforward principle: “Do your best every day and do what is best for your students.” That philosophy reflects both accountability and service. Whether leading a school, coaching an educator, teaching a graduate course, supporting a new teacher, developing professional learning, or working directly with high school students, Emily approaches leadership with the belief that decisions should ultimately serve people and advance meaningful outcomes. As she pursues board and advisory opportunities, she offers organizations the perspective of a seasoned educator who understands that strong leadership requires vision, disciplined execution, thoughtful communication, and a genuine commitment to the communities an organization serves.
Character:
Emily leads with a deeply rooted commitment to service, integrity, responsibility, and the well-being of the students and educators entrusted to her leadership. Her decades-long career reflects consistency between her personal values and professional actions, particularly her belief in doing her best each day while making decisions centered on those she serves.
Knowledge:
She brings more than 27 years of practical educational experience supported by doctoral-level preparation in learning organizations and strategic change. Her experience across teaching, administration, instructional coaching, faculty development, higher education, mentoring, curriculum, and professional learning provides her with a multidimensional understanding of educational organizations.
Strategic:
Emily combines frontline educational experience with the organizational perspective gained from serving as a principal, assistant principal, instructional coach, faculty development director, and team leader. She is skilled at connecting institutional priorities with implementation through curriculum alignment, professional development, assessment, data analysis, teacher support, organizational change, and continuous improvement.
Communication:
Spending her career communicating across diverse stakeholder groups, including students, teachers, administrators, families, graduate students, leadership teams, and community partners. Her experience teaching, coaching, mentoring, facilitating professional development, managing school communications, and contributing to educational scholarship demonstrates an ability to make complex ideas understandable, practical, and actionable.
