About

Dr. Alyson Lerma serves as the CEO and founder of Education Foundations, LLC. With two decades of experience in PK-12 education, she is a veteran educator who has held a variety of roles, including: classroom teacher, district supervisor of World Languages and English as a Second Language Programs, State Director of Homeless and Migrant Education Programs and Director of ESEA and IDEA Monitoring at the Tennessee Department of Education, and Director of Grants in both Metro Nashville Public Schools and at KIPP Nashville. 

Dr. Lerma has extensive experience working directly with various grants and federal programs, such as:

  • Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)

  • Magnet Schools Assistant Programs (MSAP)

  • ESSER (CARES, CRRSA, and ARP)

  • Charter Schools Program (CSP)

  • McKinney-Vento

  • Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)

  • Full Service Community Schools

  • Education Innovation and Research grants (EIR)

As part of her years of work with ESEA at both the district and state levels, she has experience with public charter schools, equitable services to non-public schools, neglected and delinquent programs, migrant education, McKinney-Vento, risk-based monitoring, emergency relief funds, informing and implementing compliant policies related to the Uniform Grants Guidance (UGG) and EDGAR, serving youth in foster care, and education programs in juvenile justice and residential treatment facilities.

She has experience with a wide range of federal entitlement and competitive grants, including the Title programs of the ESEA, Magnet Schools Assistant Programs (MSAP), ESSER (CARES, CRRSA, and ARP), Charter Schools Program (CSP), McKinney-Vento, IDEA, Full Service Community Schools, and more. Most recently, she led a team that managed a portfolio of more than $450 million in grant funds. In addition, she has managed and written winning applications for a variety of private and philanthropic grants and served as a peer reviewer for various Department of Education grants. Dr. Lerma also has served as a senior researcher and subject matter expert in the area of educator recruitment and retention on a project with the Institute of Education Sciences.

She is active in the professional community, serving as a board member of the Tennessee Association of Federal Programs Administrators (TAFPA), an organization she co-founded that serves ESEA directors across the state. In addition, Alyson serves as an adjunct faculty member in the graduate school of Peabody College at Vanderbilt University and has presented on various ESEA topics at the National ESEA conference.