Shayne Evans is the director of the four campuses of the University of Chicago Charter School, as well as a managing director of UEI.
As director of the charter school, Evans focuses on continuously improving upon the 5Essentials for school improvement. He works with school leaders, teachers and support staff to improve the ability to provide Ambitious Instruction to every student served. Working closely with instructional coaches and leadership teams, Evans helps design effective Professional Development (Collaborative Teachers) sessions for pre-K through 12 staff on a weekly basis. He shares best practices from across the campuses aimed at increasing Family Involvement. Evans attends to the ongoing development of a safe, orderly, and Supportive Environment so that every student can focus on learning and every teacher can concentrate on instruction. Finally, through Effective Leadership, Evans works to strengthen the collaborations that exist among the four campuses, while at the same time, creating new partnerships in order to leverage the expertise and leadership of teachers, leaders, counselors, social workers, tutors and after-school providers, all oriented toward one overarching mission: 4-year College for all.
Prior to becoming director of the University of Chicago Charter School, Shayne Evans served as the director of the Woodlawn campus and before that, as director of Program Development at the Carter G. Woodson campus. He co-founded the school with Jared Washington, the Carter G. Woodson director. Previously, Evans worked as middle school assistant director and lead literacy teacher at the North Kenwood Oakland (NKO) campus.
Before joining NKO’s staff in 2004, Evans worked as an 8th grade mathematics teacher at Chicago International Charter School-Bucktown campus; an advanced placement U.S. history teacher at Ida Crown Jewish Academy; and as an 8th grade homeroom instructor at Julia Lathrop Elementary, as a member of the Teachers for Chicago Program. Recently, he acted as a curriculum consultant to the Urban Education Institute’s 6to16 program.
Evans studied political science and African American history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During his senior year, he worked full time as the director of a nationally award-winning program, the “M.A.L.E. Project,” for “at-risk” young men sponsored by Planned Parenthood and the United Way.
