Lisa Tazartes
Interim Executive Director
Lisa Tazartes, Read Ahead’s Interim Executive Director, is a seasoned nonprofit leader with expertise in strategic partnership and capacity building. Her work for the past 25 years has centered around founding and growing Ramapo Training, the professional development arm of Ramapo for Children, into a vibrant capacity building organization with over 80 staff. In this work, Lisa has led major capacity building efforts for the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development and the New York City Department of Education preparing staff to serve a wider range of young people from early childhood through high school programs. After supporting her organization through nationalization and two mergers, she is currently working as an independent program strategy consultant. She brings experience scaling and honing education and youth service models in numerous contexts. Lisa’s career began as a special educator and leader of experiential education programs. Lisa is also a recipient of the prestigious Zella Bronfman Butler Award in recognition of her role as change agent in the field of disabilities, recognizing specifically her system-wide work to develop a citywide workforce to allow successful inclusion of children with (dis)abilities in community based after-school programs. More importantly, Lisa an active parent of two New York City public school students and sits on the PTA executive board for one school and the School Leadership Team for another.