Rachel Wright Junio serves as Director of the Golden LEAF Schools Initiative (GLSI) at the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI). In this role, she leads a statewide effort to strengthen educational opportunity and workforce readiness in rural and economically distressed communities. The initiative supports a network of schools through job-embedded coaching, high-quality instructional resources, and leadership development grounded in the High Reliability Schools improvement framework.
Rachel oversees a multidisciplinary team responsible for implementation, evaluation, and strategic partnerships across participating districts. Her work focuses on helping schools build aligned systems across leadership, instruction, assessment, and career pathways that support sustainable improvement and stronger outcomes for students.
Prior to leading the GLSI, Rachel held leadership roles within the NCDPI focused on federal programs and statewide improvement and innovation. She has extensive experience supporting districts in the strategic use of resources, data, and evaluation to accelerate learning and strengthen outcomes for underserved students. She is also a former middle school English/Language Arts teacher.
Rachel is also a doctoral student whose work examines how evidence and policy shape decision-making in rural school systems. She is passionate about bridging research, policy, and practice to ensure innovation efforts translate into meaningful and scalable improvements for students and communities.