Dr. Crystal Marr, Director of Student Personnel Services at Summit Public Schools in New Jersey
Dr. Crystal A. Marr is a visionary leader with a deep commitment to fostering inclusive learning environments and shaping the future of educational equity. In her role, Dr. Marr has successfully spearheaded groundbreaking initiatives to strengthen diversity, equity, and cultural competencies across the organization. Dr. Marr’s strategic leadership and dedication to humanity-driven education have led to the development of a thriving school culture that empowers all students to reach their full potential, ensuring that every student and staff member is known by name, by strength, and by story.
Dr. Crystal Marr has led Summit Schools through an extensive organization-wide DEI audit, strategic planning process, and branding effort to ensure that the priority areas that were developed through planning are woven into the fabric of the school district community and impact the most important stakeholders, students. This effort included a partnership with an external research organization to ensure objective audit results and planning with all stakeholder groups securing qualitative and quantitative data were used to develop a deep understanding of the needs within the school district community.
As students and families arrived back to school for the 2023-2024 school year, they were met with signage at each school, in every language represented at that school with the vision of: Everyone. By Name. By Strength. By Story. For the opening staff, Dr. Marr secured a former student who had written a graphic novel about their experience in Summit Schools as a Korean-American non-binary student. The message was difficult to hear at times, but it held the truth behind a student’s experience within the system. This was accompanied by the development of a video with several principals in the district as well as the superintendent, where they showed vulnerability and spoke to moments throughout their lives and careers where they found connection by knowing a student or being known themselves, by their names, their strengths, and their stories. This plan cascaded through the buildings and the classrooms with connection and community-building activities to be completed during the first weeks of school highlighting that the district is first about students and second about content.
