Caitlin Hannon

In 2015 The Mind Trust awarded Caitlin Hannon of Indianapolis its ninth Education Entrepreneur Fellowship, through which she will develop and launch Enroll Indy, a new nonprofit that will create a unified enrollment system in Indianapolis to provide parents with a central hub for information about various public school options and how to enroll their child in one of those schools.

A unified enrollment system would streamline the school choice process for families, provide more equitable access to quality schools and increase the information available to families as they make choices about schools. Enroll Indy would include a comprehensive school chooser guide and parent engagement program, a one-stop application for families to select their school preferences and a research and advocacy effort meant to harness the data about what schools parents want and how those schools perform.

Through the fellowship, she will spend up to two years creating this system and will begin by working with the Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) and many of the city’s charter schools to build partnerships for the effort.

Caitlin, a former classroom teacher, school board member and nonprofit leader, was selected by The Mind Trust out of thousands of applicants via a rigorous selection process involving a panel of local and national education experts.

Before accepting the fellowship, Caitlin was the executive director of Teach Plus-Indianapolis, a national nonprofit that develops and retains great teachers in urban schools. Before joining Teach Plus, she was a member of the Teach For America corps and taught English in IPS. Before teaching, she was the education policy coordinator for a New York state legislator, where she fought for equitable admission policies in high-performing schools on New York City’s Lower East Side.

She holds a performing arts degree from The American Academy of Dramatic Arts, a bachelor’s degree in public affairs from Baruch College, where she focused on school governance, and a master’s degree in teaching from Marian University.

Caitlin served on the IPS Board from 2013 to 2015, but resigned her seat to accept the fellowship.