La Dawn Baity is a nationally recognized educational leader, executive coach, and school improvement expert with more than 35 years of experience leading transformational change in public education. As Co-Founder and Managing Partner of The Impact Team, she works alongside district leaders, principals, and Instructional Leadership Teams to strengthen instructional leadership, build sustainable systems, and accelerate student achievement through side-by-side analytic partnership.

Throughout her distinguished career, La Dawn has served as a teacher, literacy coach, mathematics coordinator, staff developer, principal, principal supervisor, and instructional superintendent. Her extensive experience across multiple levels of educational leadership provides her with a deep understanding of the leadership practices, organizational systems, and implementation strategies required to achieve meaningful and sustainable school improvement.

Prior to founding The Impact Team, La Dawn served as an Instructional Superintendent for Denver Public Schools, where she supervised and coached principals leading schools across Southwest Denver, many of which faced significant performance challenges. She developed leadership capacity, strengthened instructional systems, and supported the implementation of data-driven improvement practices, instructional coaching systems, and leadership team structures. Under her leadership, three schools successfully exited turnaround status and demonstrated measurable improvements in student achievement and organizational effectiveness.

La Dawn is particularly recognized for her expertise in school turnaround and leadership development. As principal of Trevista ECE–8 School, she led a comprehensive turnaround effort that transformed the school from one of the lowest-performing schools in Colorado to a school rated “Green” on the Colorado School Performance Framework. Through strategic talent development, instructional improvement, culture transformation, and rigorous implementation monitoring, the school achieved significant gains in both student growth and achievement. Earlier in her career, as principal of Steck Elementary School, she led one of Colorado’s highest-performing schools to achieve top statewide academic growth results, including one of the highest Median Growth Percentiles in the state.

Beyond her district leadership experience, La Dawn has developed and coached educational leaders nationally through her work with New Leaders, the Relay Graduate School of Education, and the University of Virginia Partnership for Leaders in Education. She has provided executive coaching, leadership development, and systems implementation support for principal supervisors, district leaders, and principals in school systems including Oakland Unified School District, the School District of Philadelphia, East Texas Region 8, Hillsborough County Public Schools, Pueblo School District, Adams 14 School District, and Denver Public Schools.

A trusted advisor to educational leaders, La Dawn specializes in leadership development, school turnaround, instructional leadership, organizational effectiveness, observation and feedback systems, coaching cultures, data-driven improvement cycles, and strategic implementation planning. Her work focuses on helping leaders move beyond planning to disciplined execution by building the structures, habits, and accountability systems necessary to sustain improvement over time.

La Dawn’s leadership philosophy is grounded in a belief that every student deserves access to excellent instruction and every leader deserves the support necessary to develop their full potential. She is known for her ability to build strong relationships while maintaining a relentless focus on results, helping leaders strengthen adult practice in ways that produce measurable improvements in student outcomes.

She holds a Master’s Degree in Special Education and Exceptional Children from the University of Northern Colorado, a Certificate in Educational Administration from the University of Denver’s Ritchie Program for Urban School Leaders, and has completed advanced leadership development through New Leaders, Relay Graduate School of Education, the University of Virginia Partnership for Leaders in Education, Cognitive Coaching, and executive leadership coaching programs.