SIATech is pleased to announce Dr. Terrance Mims as the new Superintendent / Chief Education Officer of SIATech as of July 1, 2020. Dr. Mims brings more than 25 years of experience in public education and business management to the organization.
Dr. Mims replaces Dr. Linda Dawson who led SIATech in this capacity since 2004 and will be retiring at the end of the 2019-2020 school year. Dr. Dawson spoke positively about the transition: “Dr. Mims is an articulate and highly-experienced educator who has a heart for our student population. He has worked both in business and in education and believes strongly in distributed, collaborative leadership guided by data-driven decision-making. Terrance is mission-driven, authentic in his conversation, and a good listener. He values the opinions of others and is a person of good intent, eager to learn about SIATech, and discover the contribution he can make to the organization.”
Commenting on the importance of working with at-promise students, Dr. Mims remarked: “I have long believed that the most effective way to change the life-trajectory of at-promise youth is through education. One of the greatest failures of our nation has been our unwillingness to ensure that all students -- particularly youth from communities that have been and continue to be underserved by our public institutions -- get a great education, so that they may reach their greatest potential in life. SIATech’s mission to re-engage students who have not found success in traditional high school settings through a rigorous, relevant, relationship-focused learning academic program is critical to addressing this failure.”
Dr. Mims was born and raised in Fresno, CA, where he attended Bullard High School. He is a graduate of San Diego State University where he played football and earned his bachelor’s degree in Public Administration.
Dr. Mims began his professional career as a project manager with Bank of America, Inc., in San Francisco, CA. While living in San Francisco, and working at Bank of America, he decided to follow in the footsteps of his mother who had been a teacher and principal in Fresno. Dr. Mims entered the Urban Education Program at Holy Names College in Oakland, CA, to earn his teaching credential. He began his career in education as a social studies teacher at Castlemont High School, also in Oakland. He later moved to the San Francisco Unified School District where he continued as a social studies teacher at Balboa High School and McAteer High School.
In 2000, Dr. Mims and his family relocated to Seattle, WA, where he returned to the private sector working as a project manager with Microsoft Corp. Soon thereafter, fully-realizing his true passion was education, he returned to public education. He began working with Seattle Public Schools, initially as a business consultant then as a Senior Budget Analyst in the central office. Feeling the call to school leadership, Dr. Mims entered the University of Washington’s Danforth Leadership program, where he earned both his master’s in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies along with his Administrative Services Credential, and began his career as a secondary school principal. He later returned to the University of Washington to earn his doctorate in Educational Leadership from UW’s Leadership for Learning Program in 2009 and continued to distinguish himself as an effective leader in the Seattle area with a deep commitment to leading for social justice and equity in secondary schools.
In addition to his work in secondary schools, Dr. Mims served as an adjunct professor at the University of Washington, where he taught courses in Resource Management for school leadership, as well as Antioch University, Seattle, where he taught courses in Educational Leadership and School Reform in Antioch University’s Master’s in Education Program.
Combined, Dr. Mims brings over 20 years of educational leadership experience to SIATech and a wealth of experience developing and delivering high-quality educational programs designed to meet the social, emotional, and academic needs of students from marginalized communities.
Dr. Mims now lives in San Diego with his wife, Jennifer. They have three grown children: Kamilah, Gibran and Khepra. In his spare time Dr. Mims enjoys spending time outdoors: cycling, playing golf, fishing, walking, and hanging out with family and friends.
Dr. Mims welcomes the dynamic work of SIATech. “I believe all of my professional experience has prepared me to lead SIATech as Superintendent/CEO. I have worked in some high-performing, complex business environments and, as a result, have learned many important organizational leadership and management principles early in my career. So, I had the opportunity to develop a broad set of skills and competencies early in my professional career that I later applied to public education and school leadership. Together, my experiences in the private sector, in the classroom, and as an equity-focused school leader has prepared me well to lead SIATech. I look forward to drawing upon my knowledge and experience in systems-level leadership and continuous improvement so that SIATech can drive more equitable outcomes for at-promise youth in the schools and communities we serve.”
Dr. Mims will work out of the SIATech central office and can be reached at 760.631.6078 and terrance.mims@siatech.org. Pricilla Perez serves as his executive assistant. His start date is July 1.