Marla Dean

Dr. Marla M. Dean is a native Detroiter who currently lives in the southeast quadrant of Washington. Dr Dean has over 30 years of teaching, coaching, leadership, nonprofit, and executive experience. She is a former English and government teacher, assistant principal, middle and high school principal, turnaround principal, chief of schools and a non-profit CEO in District of Columbia, Maryland, Michigan, and Virginia. Marla is a national leader and expert on the whole child and two generation approaches, with a TedX Talk on the subject of 2Gen Policy and Approaches: a pathway out of poverty.   

Currently, Marla chairs the Ward 7 Education Council; is the national board chair for birdSeed Foundation, an organization dedicated to ensuring Black and Brown homeownership in cities with rapid displacement; and a board member on the District of Columbia Early Learning Collaborative (DCELC), R Street Institute.  Marla has received numerous awards and recognitions, the most recent being East River Family Strengthening Collaborative’s 2023 Empowered Women Award. 

Marla is a member of the 2020 Class of Leadership Greater Washington and a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.  Most importantly, she is a wife to Steve, a juvenile probation officer, and mother to Aaron, a filmmaker, who graduated from Morehouse College, lives in Atlanta and works for an international marketing agency.