Angela Jerabek is the founder and executive director of BARR Center.
Angela was a school counselor in a high school in the Twin Cities, MN, where she developed the BARR (Building Assets, Reducing Risks) model – an evidence-based coaching and training system that improves student-, teacher- and school-level outcomes.
Angela received three Investing in Innovation (i3) federal grants to rigorously evaluate BARR, resulting in BARR being the most researched model in the nation. 78 schools participated in randomized controlled trials, concluding 20 statistically significant positive outcomes for students and teachers. In a 2024 review of the i3/EIR grant program, the Hechinger Report named BARR “the poster child for what this grant program had hoped to produce.”
Angela founded the BARR Center to scale the model. BARR serves grades K-12, and has been implemented in 450+ schools in 26 states and Washington, DC. To date, 430,000 students and 95,000 educators have benefited from BARR.
Angela has published five books, op-eds, and articles. She has been featured in USA Today, National Public Radio, and CNBC. Jerabek co-authored “The BARR Model: Fostering Resilient School Systems, Staff, and Students,” in the Handbook of Resilience in Children, 3rd Edition.
Angela has presented extensively, including at the White House’s “Evidence in Education Roundtable, the National Lt. Governors Association, Education Commission of States, Hunt Institute, National Rural Education Association, Teaching Times (UK), National Prevention Network, and Carnegie Summit.
In 2024, she was awarded the James Conant Bryant Award from the Education Commission of the States, given annually to the single individual who made an outstanding contribution to the field of education. In 2021, Jerabek was selected as the Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s National “Wisest Wonk.”
Angela is a proud alumna of the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University where she was awarded the Social Entrepreneur of the Year in 2020 and the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2025.
