Sarah Said is a Middle Eastern daughter of immigrants from the southwest suburbs of Chicago. Currently, she lives in the suburbs west of Chicago. She is one of the founding administrators of an Expeditionary Learning school, the Elgin Math and Science Academy (EMSA), close to 40 miles west of Chicago. A mother of three children herself, Sarah serves as the school’s director of language and equity programs. In this role, she oversees the school’s Multilingual Learning program and supports the school’s equity frameworks. Sarah has strong beliefs in school-to-family connections and demonstrates this in her outreach work.
Sarah is also a Reimagining Migration Fellow. Her fellowship project, “Pieces of Me,” explores student-family identity and was recently part of the Teaching Tolerance Educator Grants program. In addition to her work at EMSA, Sarah plays a large role in the open-source movement. As a community coach for ELA with Open Up Resources, she supports teachers in communities that do not have access to quality curricular professional development. She believes in having a voice for equity and has written for numerous blogs, including Edweek Teacher, and she contributes regularly to Confianza. As an educator, she lives her days and nights advocating to bridge the equity gap in schools and communities for marginalized populations.
