April Montgomery

April Montgomery is a writer, artist, and community builder at the intersection of education, justice, and storytelling based between New York City and the Indiana woods. The first in her family to go to college, she spent nearly three decades in education, teaching in Washington D.C., New York City, and Gary, Indiana, including fifteen years leading KIPP Chicago. There she built one of the city's highest performing school networks, launched the Whole Child Initiative, and founded the Children's Museum of Art and Social Justice, a space for children to heal through art. She is the recipient of the Cartier Award for Excellence in Teaching and a 2025 Power of Women honoree. She is currently working on her first book and learning that the most important stories are the ones we've been afraid to tell.