Jesse Garrett

Chief Administrative Officer

Jesse is in his final year as Co-Director of Forensics at James Logan High School where the program has earned the Bruno E. Jacobs Award for the second time in its history and has added three consecutive School of Outstanding Distinction Awards to it’s already illustrious resume of national awards and recognitions. He is also the former Executive Chair for the New Haven Teacher’s Association Racial Justice Committee and currently teaches in the Ethnic Studies and Visual and Performing Arts Departments. From designing and implementing courses from Issues in Ethnic Studies, Latinx Issues in the United States, to the current iteration of the African American Male Life Skills year long cohort, Jesse has over a decade of experience in the classroom. As an alumni of the JLHS Forensics program, he was a part of the first “perfect season” in 2001, appeared in the award winning documentary “Accidental Hero: Room 408” filmed about Dr. Tommie Lindsey, Jr., his mentor, and took 2nd place in Impromptu Public Speaking at the California High School Speech Association CA State Championship Tournament that year.

He is also trilingual, fluent in Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese, having served as a Rotary Youth Ambassador to São Paulo Brazil in 1998-99. Jesse holds a B.A. in International Relations from San Francisco State University, two CA Single Subject Teaching Credentials in Social Studies and English, a Bilingual Teaching Authorization Certificate in Spanish, and is currently completing his Masters Degree in Teaching from the University of San Francisco. He has spent his career working in education and communications consulting serving as a Special Education Tutor for low income elementary and middle school students in college and running his own small public relations/communications consulting service, Garrett Enterprises, working with the Public Affairs, Maritime, and Social Responsibility Divisions of the Port of Oakland in the mid-2000s.

His passions include chess, reading, and travel. He has been around the world, having visited 16 countries and over 100 cities, and aspires to visit Macau, Thailand, and Vietnam in the near future. He currently divides his time between the SF Bay Area and Tijuana, Mexico where he plans on retiring.

Email: jesse.garrett@ascendspeech.org