Dr. Bernadine Futrell serves in the Biden-Harris Administration as the Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education at the U.S. Department of Education. At Ed, she leads the agency’s equity action plan and the elementary and secondary discretionary grant programs under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Before coming to the Department of Education, Bernadine served in the Biden-Harris Administration as the Director for the Office of Head Start (OHS). As Director of OHS, she led efforts to safely return children and families to in-person services through the Head Start Forward Campaign; implemented policies to make it easier for SNAP-eligible families to enroll in Head Start; reestablished the Head Start Fellowship program; issued policy guidance to improve compensation for the Head Start workforce and launched “Get a Head Start” a unified recruitment message to help Head Start programs increase enrollment. Firmly committed to education as an equity accelerator, she began her career at a Head Start program in Richmond VA. Most recently, she was the Senior Director for Effective Practice at the National Head Start Association (NHSA) and Director of the Leadership Network for the American Association of School Administrators.

Dr. Futrell is a published author, a Virginia Commonwealth University and George Mason University graduate, and a member of the Board of Visitors for Howard University’s School of Education. She and her husband, Dr. Michael Futrell, are the parents of two young children.

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