Título profesional: Chief Operating Officer, Monarch School Project

KishaLynn Elliott is Chief Operating Officer at Monarch School Project – a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving thousands of unhoused youth and their families.

With over a decade of service to Monarch, she is an integral part of the nation’s only K-12 public school designed specifically for unhoused youth. Elliott, in partnership with USD’s Jacobs Institute for Innovation in Education, led the nation’s first-ever study on social-emotional learning in K-12 students experiencing homelessness, which showed that unhoused students have strong social-emotional learning skills, such as sense of belonging and self-esteem. She is a certified coach, a licensed restorative practices trainer, holds a Project Management Professional (PMP) credential and holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Spelman College.

KishaLynn Elliott joined the Monarch School in September 2013 as director of college and career development. In this role, she created the first student internship program at Monarch, partnering with workforce development partners to provide students with career-readiness, work experience and mentorship.

Her TEDxSanDiego talk, “Unhoused Students are Stronger Than You Think,” discussed her lived experience being unhoused in high school, and how Monarch students already have high social navigation, grit and perseverance due to the trauma of homelessness, based on her findings.