Scheherazade Salimi

Scheherazade Salimi is a Deputy Director for Partnerships and Impact at CPRL. In this role, she manages external relationships, executes on CPRL’s development strategy, and oversees CPRL’s portfolio of engagements. Scheherazade has led and supported projects for state departments of education, large urban school systems, policy institutes, philanthropies, and nonprofit organizations. She has extensive expertise in law and policy governing special education, school funding, and charter schools; design of state data systems; engaging diverse stakeholders to inform strategy and implementation; and establishing structures to enable organizational learning. Prior to joining CPRL, Scheherazade was managing owner of Spark Education LLC, where consulting projects included launching a new venture philanthropy fund, providing legal analysis of governance options for a school district’s universal enrollment system, developing a grant program to support students with significant behavioral challenges, and providing strategy advice for the deployment of a $250 million fund to promote facilities equity for public charter schools. Scheherazade also served as Chief of Staff to the Deputy Mayor for Education in Washington, D.C., overseeing a number of high-impact policy initiatives on school funding, special education, enrollment policy, public education facilities, and community engagement. Scheherazade has a B.A. in philosophy from Columbia University and a J.D. from the New York University School of Law.