As a Character and Equity Fellow in the Build Track of the BES Fellowship, Tené Layman will propose a new charter school in Phoenix, Arizona. “I want to teach students how to make career, education, and financial life decisions at an early age, to help prepare them for their lives beyond the high school experience.” Tené has been involved in Arizona’s educational landscape since 2005. After graduating with a B.A. in Human Communication from Arizona State University, she worked as an adjunct faculty member and instructor for Maricopa Community College located in Phoenix. In addition to teaching courses in Family Childcare and Small Business Management, she taught English to adult English Language Learners as they prepared to take their high school equivalency exam. Tené’s teaching background coupled with her commitment to serving historically marginalized populations motivated her to eventually open a private business focused on providing daycare services and kindergarten readiness programming in her community. She successfully operated her business for more than five years, while simultaneously fulfilling Lead Teacher responsibilities. In 2012, Tené transitioned full-time to K-12 education as an elementary school teacher for the Creighton School District. Since 2011, Tené and her family have spent a significant amount of time volunteering for community service projects focused on serving low income populations across the valley area of Arizona and in bordering Mexico.
Tené’s first school leadership position came in 2016, when she stepped into the role of Elementary Assistant Principal at Phoenix Christian Preparatory School. She was soon tapped to become principal of the elementary school, and during her time in this role, she overhauled the school’s teacher evaluation system and revamped parent-teacher conference structures in service of promoting greater collaboration amongst families and the school community. For the last several years, Tené has furthered her school leadership experience by pivoting to virtual K-12 education settings. She has served as an assistant principal for the virtual high school of Arizona Connections Academy, a statewide K-12 virtual charter school, as well as school leader for the elementary division of the Roosevelt School District (RSD) Online Academy, where she has been principal since 2021. RSD specifically hired Tené to launch and lead the district-initiated online academy for students in grades 1-8.
In addition to her Bachelor’s degree from ASU, Tené holds a Master’s degree in Elementary Education from the University of Phoenix and a Master’s in Educational Leadership from Northern Arizona University.
