Jackie Owens Wilson

Jacquelyn Wilson has been an educator for 48 years. She has 30 years of experience in PK-12 education including teaching, literacy specialist, assistant principal and principal for the Indian River School District in Delaware. She was named Delaware’s National Distinguished Elementary School Principal (NAESP 2002) and a USDOE National Blue Ribbon School Principal (2001). She served as the Director of Professional Accountability at the Delaware Department of Education, responsible for licensure and certification, quality of preparation programs for teachers and school leaders, professional development and school leadership.  After retiring from the public school system, Jackie served as Program Coordinator for Southern Delaware at Wilmington  University for several years. Dr. Wilson is currently an assistant professor in the School of Education at the University of Education where she teaches and advises graduate students in the EDD and MED programs. She has served as the Director of the Delaware Academy for School Leadership (DASL), a professional development, research and policy center in the College of Education and Human Development at the University from 2010-2022. In 2015-2017 she led the merger of three professional development centers and designed a comprehensive model of professional development that includes content and leadership coaching and professional learning for teachers and principals. In her role at DASL,  Dr. Wilson led a team of leadership specialists providing professional development and coaching support to education leaders in Delaware and school districts across the United States.  Notable accomplishments include the development and funding of the Delaware’s Governor’s Institute for School Leadership;  the design and approval of an alternative route state approved principal preparation program; serving as the lead consultant to NASSP for their School Leaders Academy focused on using design thinking for school improvement; and creating a principal pipeline model for school leaders that includes ASPIRE for teacher leaders, STEP-UP for Assistant Principals, and Design Thinking for Advanced Principals., Dr. Wilson is the Executive Director of the National Policy Board for Educational Leadership. NPBEA is a national alliance of major membership organizations committed to the advancement of school and school-system leadership. Member organizations represent the educational administration profession and collaborate to improve the preparation and practice of educational leaders at all levels. She co-chaired the national standards redesign committee that developed the Professional Standards for School Leadership and has been engaged nationally in the redesign of principal preparation programs aligned to the PSEL/NELP standards.