About Dr. Heather Zuerblis
Dr. Heather Zuerblis is an experienced educator and literacy leader with two decades of work as a classroom teacher, literacy coach, and district-level leader. Before joining Leading Educators, she spent eighteen years in the Washington, D.C. area, where she taught, coached, and guided instructional improvement across schools and districts. While at DC Public Schools, she served as an inaugural member of the LEAP team, working alongside Leading Educators partners to launch a professional learning system rooted in high-quality instructional materials. This approach connected educators’ learning directly to lessons and used coaching cycles with observation, feedback, and data collection for a precise, practice-based professional learning experience. At Amplify, Dr. Zuerblis created and scaled professional learning experiences nationwide, rooted in the science of reading, and contributed to the DIBELS team, helping schools across the country effectively use the universal screener to guide instruction and accelerate student learning.
In her current role as Senior Director of Science of Reading at Leading Educators, Dr. Zuerblis directs the organization’s Rural Literacy Leaders Fellowship, its first major initiative focused on supporting rural communities. Previously at Leading Educators, she served as a Director on the Baltimore project, where she partnered with Baltimore City Public Schools to drive significant system-level growth. For the first time in over a decade, the district recorded gains in literacy on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)—a one-point increase directly tied to the district-wide improvements she helped lead.
Dr. Zuerblis earned her doctorate in Educational Policy and Leadership with a concentration in Early Literacy Intervention from American University. Her dissertation focused on the experiences of BIPOC school principals in Washington, D.C., as they strategically implemented programming aligned to the science of reading. She also holds a Master’s in Reading Education from Boston University and a Bachelor’s in Elementary Education from James Madison University.
In her current role as Senior Director of Science of Reading at Leading Educators, Dr. Zuerblis directs the organization’s Rural Literacy Leaders Fellowship, its first major initiative focused on supporting rural communities. Previously at Leading Educators, she served as a Director on the Baltimore project, where she partnered with Baltimore City Public Schools to drive significant system-level growth. For the first time in over a decade, the district recorded gains in literacy on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)—a one-point increase directly tied to the district-wide improvements she helped lead.
Dr. Zuerblis earned her doctorate in Educational Policy and Leadership with a concentration in Early Literacy Intervention from American University. Her dissertation focused on the experiences of BIPOC school principals in Washington, D.C., as they strategically implemented programming aligned to the science of reading. She also holds a Master’s in Reading Education from Boston University and a Bachelor’s in Elementary Education from James Madison University.
“Students deserve access to evidence-based literacy instruction, provided by a knowledgeable and effective teacher. For far too long, ineffective practices have been the norm. But now that we know better, we can do better."
