jessica (dot) sutter (at) dc (dot) gov | @jessicasutterW6
Jessica Sutter has loved school since the first day she attended community pre-school in Yonkers, NY. After spending her formative years in public schools in New York and Maryland, she graduated with a BA in Political Science from Loyola College in Maryland in 1999.
Immediately after college, she completed two years of post-college service teaching in a Chicago Catholic school and then went on to teach social studies and literature in public middle schools in Los Angeles and Washington, DC. After seven years of teaching, Jessica began a doctoral program in Education Policy Studies at the University of Maryland while continuing to work full time in a variety of education policy roles.
In 2010, Jessica served as a grant program officer at Washington DC’s Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) and made innovation grants to DC public charter schools and education-oriented non-profits. She then served as Senior Advisor to the Deputy Mayor for Education under Mayor Vincent Gray, where she worked to expand early childhood education programs and to increase the supply of quality schools in the District. In 2012, Jessica founded EdPro Consulting through which she has managed projects and authored research for a variety of local and national organizations, including the School District of Philadelphia, the DC Public Charter School Board, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Center for Reinventing Public Education.
Jessica earned her PhD in Education Policy Studies in May 2018. Her dissertation research focused on charter school closures and restarts in Washington, DC.
Jessica was sworn in to office on January 2, 2019 and is committed to ensuring that all students in District have access to equitable education opportunities and are supported to achieve their fullest potential. She is passionate about middle school education, robust curriculum, public school choice, and holding schools accountable for serving all students at high-levels of academic excellence.
When not representing the students, families and schools of Ward 6 or working with clients she can be found spoiling her niece and nephew, or swimming, biking, and running her way around Washington, DC.