Sara Gips Goodall

Sara Gips Goodall is the principal of McGlone Academy, a public ECE-8 school in Far Northeast Denver. Sara’s life’s work has been rooted in educational equity, working with international NGOs, teaching a bilingual classroom, and then moving into school leadership. A member of Harvard’s 2012 School Leadership Program, her internship at Orchard Gardens K-8 solidified her belief in the power of public school turnaround focused on data, arts, community, and teacher sustainability. She returned to Denver to join Denver Public School’s turnarounds, and took over McGlone Elementary. McGlone is a public innovation school (70 percent English-language learners, 95 percent free- and reduced-price lunch), and since turnaround, McGlone has catapulted from one of the lowest-performing schools to a top growth school for the past five years, and last year, expanded to become an ECE-8 Academy. Under Sara’s leadership, McGlone went from 10 percent staff retention to 90 percent, increased over 200 in enrollment, and went from red to green on the Colorado SPF.