Myriam Ortiz

Chief of Community Engagement

Born in Puerto Rico, Myriam Ortiz (She/Her/Ella) is a mother of 15 year old twins, Meeka and Jahari, and a graduate of University of Puerto Rico and UMASS Boston. Since 1999, her passion for transforming educational outcomes for students drove her to work in the non profit sector as a parent organizer and eventually as Executive Director of the Boston Parent Organizing Network (BPON). During her tenure at BPON, Myriam was a member of the Executive Team and Steering Committee of the Boston United for Students Coalition, a broad-based group of BPS student, parent, children advocate, community, business, civic and faith-based organizations that advocated for systemic reform in the teachers' contract to ensure a better education for all BPS students. As steering committee member she led the charge of designing and implementing a Coalition Charter that served as guide for the successful mobilization of parents, students and community leaders.

After seven years as ED for BPON, Myriam worked with The City School, Inc., a Youth Leadership Development Organization in the Boston neighborhood of Uphams Corner. During her 4 years at TCS, Myriam successfully managed the expansion of programming services at TCS, including the establishment of cross-agency weekly programming between TCS, REEP, Beantown Society and the UNNAMED Coalition. Under her leadership, TCS also ran a successful Capital Campaign leading to the purchase of their office space, making it a permanent home for the organization.

Since February 2019, Myriam has been the Director of Community Engagement for the Boston Public Schools. Her team supports the Superintendent’s Office in designing and coordinating district wide engagement opportunities for BPS families, staff and the general public. Myriam was the coordinator of the Engagement Tour that resulted in BPS former Superintendent visiting all 125 BPS schools in her first 100 days in office. Myriam’s team also coordinated all engagement efforts related to the current District's Strategic Plan in the fall of 2019. Following the transition to remote learning as a result of the pandemic in the spring of 2020, Myriam mobilized her team to conduct virtual community meetings that resulted in the engagement of over 6,000 parents, as the district prepared to implement hybrid learning in the fall of 2020. Her team continues to support engagement activities and initiatives such as the Community Engagement Advisory Council and the upcoming Wednesdays with Mary Skipper, a platform for parents to engage directly with the BPS Superintendent. When she is not designing opportunities to improve BPS Engagement efforts, you can find her playing her guitar or singing soft tunes from the Caribbean and Latinamerica.

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