Chrystal Westerhaus

Chrystal Westerhaus will launch and lead Girls IN STEM Academy, an all-girls public school for grades K-8 opening in Fall 2024. The school will be operated by Paramount Schools of Excellence (PSOE) in partnership with Girl Scouts of Central Indiana, Every Girl Can STEM™, and Purdue Polytechnic High School.

Westerhaus has more than 10 years of school leadership experience. She founded and launched Avondale Meadows Middle School (AMMS) in 2017 through The Mind Trust’s Innovation School Fellowship. In her five years of leadership at AMMS, she led the school to improve its state rating from a “C” to a consecutive “A” ratings from the Indiana Department of Education. 

She has previously served as an assistant principal and teacher at Tindley Accelerated Schools.  She earned her bachelor’s in elementary education from Purdue University and a master’s in urban principalship and educational leadership from Indiana University. She completed Relay Graduate School of Education’s National Principal Fellowship in 2020 and was a 2021 Indianapolis Surge Academy Fellow.