Alicja ''Litsy'' Witkowski

Litsy specializes in working with states to establish the conditions for strong instruction in every classroom. Her work is grounded in the belief that teachers deserve both high-quality instructional materials that get students excited to learn and job-embedded support that allows them to use those materials in a way that maximizes student outcomes.

Before founding Rivet, Litsy served as Rebecca Kockler’s Chief of Staff on the Academic Content team at the Louisiana Department of Education. In this role, Litsy helped develop and lead a multi-pronged strategy for scaling the adoption and implementation of HQIM across the state. This included overseeing the PL that LDOE provides directly to educators (e.g. Teacher Leader Summit and Supervisor Collaborations); developing and leveraging a strong vendor marketplace (e.g. LDOE’s PD Vendor Guide); harnessing the power and expertise of local educators to provide content- and curriculum-specific professional development to thousands of teachers across Louisiana (e.g. Teacher Leaders and Content Leaders); and aligning incentives to these strategies (e.g. school system planning process).

Since leaving LDOE, Litsy led the Texas Education Agency’s pilot instructional materials review processfocused on ensuring districts in one of the largest markets in the country have access to valid, transparent, and user-friendly information about the quality of instructional materials. Litsy has also provided support to organizations such as Teaching Lab, Chiefs for Change, CCSSO, and Cambiar’s School Systems Leaders Fellowship. Before beginning her work with state agencies, Litsy led Teach For America’s teacher leadership development teams in Connecticut and New Orleans. She began her career as a 7th grade math and science teacher in Redwood City, California and holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale University.