Dr. Alyson Lerma
Founder + Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Alyson Lerma is the founder of Education Foundations, LLC, building on more than two decades of experience across the classroom, district, and state levels of public education. Her career spans service as a Spanish and special education teacher, District Supervisor of World Languages and ESL, State Director of ESEA and IDEA Monitoring at the Tennessee Department of Education, and Director of Grants at both Metro Nashville Public Schools and KIPP Nashville, where she has led teams managing portfolios exceeding $500 million and secured more than $30 million in competitive awards since July 2022.
Her work spans school types and sectors: she has partnered with public charter schools and charter management organizations on authorization and compliance, brings direct experience with equitable services to non-public schools, and has served as an expert witness in federal and state litigation involving federal education funding. She has served as adjunct faculty at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College and is a founding member and former elected Vice President of the Tennessee Association of Federal Programs Administrators (TAFPA). A team member of the Southeast Region 5 Comprehensive Center and a published, paid contributing author with Salem Press, she has presented at the National ESEA Conference and the BELMAS international conference in Cardiff, Wales, and serves as a peer reviewer for the U.S. Department of Education. Her work is grounded in the belief that every student, regardless of geography or school type, deserves leaders with the resources and knowledge to support meaningful outcomes.
Email: alerma@edfoundations.com
Capacity
Built to scale with your project
Education Foundations is built around Dr. Lerma's direct expertise, with the ability to bring in specialized associates for engagements that call for additional fiscal, governance, or compliance depth. Every engagement is staffed to match the scope of the work — not the other way around.