Liisa Moilanen Potts

Liisa Moilanen Potts is the Director of Curriculum at CommonLit, an OER ELA provider, where she works on the CL360 team developing 6-12 curriculum. Prior to this, Liisa was the inaugural ELA Director at EdReports, supporting the development of review methodology for states and districts across the country.

In addition to these roles, she has been a consultant (independent and with ANet) for public and private schools and districts, focusing on school improvement efforts to support equitable instruction for all children. As a coach, Liisa provides instructional practice guidance for teachers and school and district administrators in assessment, all core content areas, EL support, and CTE.  At OSPI (Washington state's department of education), Liisa served as Director of Literacy/ELA and Professional Learning Integration, where she worked to develop and implement statewide birth-to-20 literacy efforts.  Liisa's roots in education are in the classroom: she taught grades 5-12 ELA and college level English and education courses in Washington, California, and Iowa for over 15 years.

Liisa holds a MAT in English from the University of Iowa and a Bachelor's from the University of Washington, and is a National Writing Project Fellow (CWT, 1997). She is slated to complete her EdD in organizational management at Vanderbilt in 2024.