%20(1)_edited.png)
Beatrice Oten
Creates a Path for Herself and Her Community
To chase her aspirations, Beatrice Oten knew she needed to be independent.
Growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, the “land of opportunity,” Oten says she was exposed to a range of ideas and concepts. She developed an initial interest in politics, but to pursue it, she knew she needed to find opportunities on her own.
In high school, Oten searched on Google, hoping to find an opportunity to develop her interest in politics. Running Start’s High School Program caught her attention. While traveling to DC for the program at American University, Oten met people from across the country.
That early drive followed her through college, where she studied K-12 special education.
Oten continued to encounter challenges as she continued her leadership journey, from balancing work and motherhood to breaking into the classroom. Trained as a teacher, she sometimes struggled to find a traditional public school teaching position.
Looking back, she would tell her younger self, “It all works out. It all works out!”
Oten began exploring other options and decided to work in public charter schools. She was clear that it needed to be a school with a deep presence in the community.
“That was Breakthrough Public Schools,” she said. During her five years at Breakthrough, Oten rose to Dean of Culture, shaping the systems and expectations that defined students’ daily experience. She then stepped to a wider stage, from a regional to a national role at Rocketship Public Schools as National Manager of Integrated Special Education and working across five states.
“It was my dream job. It was everything that I wanted it to be,” Oten said.
The role gave her a national lens on how other regions were tackling the same challenges facing Cleveland’s students. At the same time, she had so much to learn and adapt in the new role.
Beyond the dream job she once considered “everything,” Oten fell in love with entrepreneurship and began to see what was possible when she built for herself.
“We work for these companies, and we’re doing the things. We can do them for ourselves,” Oten said.
So she started her own business, an education consulting firm named Boten & Company. With that independence came a new weight of responsibility. “You feel each and every bit of that as you’re working for yourself,” she explained.
“If you’re not working, the wheel’s not moving, versus when you’re working for a business, you know, that wheel might actually still turn a little bit ’cause it’s got its own system,” she said. But with your own business, “baby, if you’re not working, ain’t nothing moving.”
Through all these difficulties, Oten kept carrying the responsibility forward. When asked how she braved it all, she pointed to her track record:
“Because I had been doing it. I had been doing it for others.”
Oten grew dissatisfied with the education she saw at her son’s school and knew Cleveland students deserved more. After years of experience, collaboration with her local school district, and a national view of what was working in other regions, she felt ready to take the next step.
“I have enough exposure; I have the skills to go ahead and build what our community needs,” she said.
That next step is New Skool Lab, a workforce-embedded STEM public charter school for grades 7-12 in Cleveland, where students graduate with industry credentials and a clear path to careers and business ownership. Oten is planning for the school to open in fall 2028.
Through The Redline Podcast, which she co-hosts with her friend Imani Winbush, Oten creates space for conversations about the experiences of parents and students. But for Oten, communication runs both ways. The podcast is as much about listening to the community as it is about speaking to it.
That belief in listening shapes how she builds relationships, too. Oten spent her career being independent. At the same time, she believes in the power of mutual support. To her, networking is an exchange, not a transaction.
“Learning how to work a room, learning how to connect with folks, hear or listen out for things where you can add capacity to [their work].” Oten said, “And then also being able to listen, keep folks abreast of the things that you have going on, so that maybe one day they can add capacity to you.”
For Oten, listening is also how she finds common ground.
“We have an alignment. It’s a mirror; we both have the same passion, or find something interesting about it to continue to hear their story and hear their perspective.” She said.
Oten encountered the power of connection through Running Start. Many women from her cohort have since become elected officials and changemakers across the world. Oten did not enter politics herself, but she is leading through education and carrying the skills she learned from the program into her work every day.
Knowing what these connections can create, Oten is calling on women in Cleveland to show up for Running Start’s Cleveland Networking Reception on November 10.
“Come on out. Please come on out. The young girls need you.”
Written by Running Start Fellow Chloe Mo.