Colleen Zamm
Master of Education in Special Education
Clarksdale, MS
Colleen works to create schools where she’s proud to send her kids and a town where she’s proud to raise them.
Colleen Zamm grew up as Colleen Guilford in Orange County, California. Her main goal in applying to college was to move to a big city. She received a B.A. in English from Columbia University in New York, an M.A. in English from the University of Virginia, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. She practiced law in Newport Beach and Washington D.C. before deciding to leave big cities behind and move to rural Mississippi. She was a 2009 Teach for America Corp Member in Ruleville, Mississippi where she taught secondary English. After one more attempt to live in the big city of Hartford, she and her music teacher husband bought a house just outside of Clarksdale, Mississippi and had an adorable pair of twins.
Colleen’s social entrepreneurship project sets up a school wide system for testing and tracking the literacy growth of elementary and middle school students. The goal is to collect, organize, and present data as efficiently as possible so that teachers are empowered with the information that they need to grow students and families can have meaningful conversations about their child’s progress.
Fun Fact: Colleen’s bucket list goals include meeting Dolly Parton and hearing Oprah say her name.
“Live Deliberately”