AUSTIN – H-E-B Chairman and CEO Charles Butt has pledged to invest more than $100 million to create The Holdsworth Center, a new leadership institute for Texas public school administrators.
The center, which will run as a nonprofit organization headquartered in Austin, aims to improve the quality of public education across the state through developing and supporting transformational public school leaders.
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Butt, a devoted advocate for public education, hopes this program will lead to sustainable improvements in Texas schools. His goal for the center is to create progress in every classroom by empowering leaders such as superintendents, principals and key administrators to reach their fullest potential.
“The Holdsworth Center is about helping people be extraordinary in the job they are in today,” Butt said. “In addition, we want them to reinvent the way future leaders are selected, developed and supported within their districts so that when a position opens up, they have a tremendous bench from which to select the next superstar.”
The center is named after Butt’s mother, Mary Elizabeth Holdsworth, a philanthropist, educator and lifelong leader of social justice. It will be governed by a 17-member board chaired by Ruth Simmons, a former president of Smith College and Brown University.
“As a proud alumna of Texas public schools, I owe my career to the excellence and strong leadership of public school educators, for which I and so many others remain grateful,” said Dr. Ruth Simmons, Chair of the Holdsworth Center’s Board of Directors.
“Mr. Butt's generous gift to the children of Texas demonstrates the level of commitment necessary to ensure a more hopeful future for our schools. I am grateful to work with him in developing and supporting leaders for our public schools."
To learn more about the center, click here.