Kia Murray

Educational Consultant/Board Chair, Propel: School Quality Consulting/Excel Academy

Kia Murray is a veteran educator, governance consultant, and charter school leader with more than 20 years of experience supporting public education systems in Colorado and beyond. Her career spans classroom teaching, instructional coaching, school leadership, network administration, and state-level consulting, giving her a rare, systems-level perspective on how governance, leadership, and instructional practice intersect to drive sustainable school success.

Kia currently works closely with charter school boards, executive leaders, and authorizers through partnerships with organizations such as the Colorado League of Charter Schools, the Charter School Institute, and the Colorado Department of Education. She facilitates board governance training, school quality reviews, and strategic planning processes, with a particular focus on helping governing boards clarify roles, strengthen executive partnerships, and recognize early indicators of organizational distress. As a long-serving charter school board chair herself, Kia brings both practical governance experience and deep empathy for the challenges board members face.

In addition to her consulting work, Kia is pursuing an Ed.D. in Charter School Administration at William Howard Taft University, where her Applied Doctoral Project centers on the development of a comprehensive board manual by integrating research, practitioner insight, and adult learning theory to equip boards with tools, metrics, and decision-making frameworks across six critical domains: leadership, governance, finance and operations, talent, culture, and instruction. Her scholarship and professional practice are grounded in the belief that strong governance is not compliance-driven, but relational, strategic, and deeply connected to long-term school sustainability.