Carmen Diaz-French serves as a Senior Associate at Insight Education Group. Carmen is a bilingual educator with a breadth of administrative and teaching experience. She most recently served as superintendent of Piner-Olivet Union School District and as an education consultant supporting various districts and schools. Carmen’s mission in schools is to transform education and provide equity to every student through learning that sparks their unique potential. In her previous position as executive director and founder of an independent charter school, Carmen focused on project-based, experiential learning, integrating English Language Arts and Mathematics with the hands-on facets of the Sciences, the Arts, and Engineering. Alongside her team, she started the independent charter school with 130 students in 2012, growing it to an enrollment of over 900 students on two sites grades K-8 and a waiting list in all grade levels and out-achieving neighboring schools in science and mathematics in 2016.
In 2009, Carmen became principal of a conversion charter school in San Diego. As a teacher and then principal between 2005 – 2012, Carmen, alongside her fellow educators, students, and community, converted the most failed district school in the district in 2005 to a charter school earning the Title I Academic Achievement Award for consecutive years between 2009 – 2012.