KAREN SURPRENANT

Karen Surprenant has spent her entire career in Head Start in both direct services as a Head Start Director and in the national Training and Technical Assistance network as a Program Management and Governance Specialist. Karen has developed a wide range of resources to support grantees in the areas of leadership, program planning, data utilization and ERSEA. Ms. Surprenant provides training on a wide array of topics including program governance, board development, program management, ERSEA (serves as a resource on a national level for updates to key information) as well as topics to numerous to list. Her experience as a trainer includes direct service training to programs, state and national level training and in partnership with other key content area experts.  

With over twenty years as a past Head Start director, Karen is a trained an experienced federal reviewer and helps programs prepare for the monitoring process. Ms. Surprenant has extensive experience working with Boards and Policy Councils, and understands the importance of providing the training and technical assistance needed to empower teams to ensure they have the resources needed to make informed decision-making. 

Karen has held leadership roles with Head Start state and regional association boards. She earned a master’s in educational leadership from Bridgewater State University and a bachelor’s in elementary education and psychology from UMass Dartmouth. Ms. Surprenant is currently a monitoring reviewer and works independently as a trainer/consultant, available to discuss your organization’s specific training needs.