Leadership in Dallas

Heather Holland

Senior Vice President and Executive Director for City Year Dallas

Heather is an experienced educator with more than a decade of service to the students of the Dallas Independent School District (ISD), currently serving as the proud Executive Director, Senior Vice President of City Year Dallas. Since joining City Year Dallas, Heather has worked with the team to bring Dallas’ staff culture to an all-time high and has built strong relationships with Dallas ISD administrators and principals to ensure strong outcomes for students.

Prior to beginning her work at City Year, she successfully led two different campuses in Dallas ISD serving as a principal for five years. During that time, Heather significantly changed the culture of her school and took her school’s climate from the bottom five to the top five in Dallas ISD, created a 23% increase in teacher retention and positively impacted student academic achievement.

Heather is a proud Dallas native and graduate of Dallas ISD, making our daily work with the over 6,000 students truly come full circle.

Alex McCoy, Managing Director of Impact

Alex McCoy serves as Managing Director of Impact for City Year Dallas. Alex started her career in education in 2011 as a Teach for America corps member in San Antonio, where she taught fifth grade. In August 2013, Alex moved back home to the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) metroplex to work in the Dallas ISD, first teaching middle school math and science before subsequently being elevated to Campus Instructional Coach. For the past four years, Alex has served in various district-level roles in Dallas ISD, including most recently, where she served as a key member of the team championing professional development districtwide for teachers and principals.

Alex joined City Year Dallas in late 2020 to lead our impact team comprised of eight professionals and overseeing our program across our seven partner schools.

Katherine Washington, People Experience Director

Katherine has served at City Year Dallas for the past six years in various roles. Prior to becoming People Experience Director, she served as an Impact Manager, Impact Director and AmeriCorps Member Experience Director. At the core of each of these roles is ensuring people have a joyous and purposeful experience. Katherine puts a high value on relationships and trust, which led her to her most recent role as the People Experience Director, overseeing alumni engagement, AmeriCorps member and staff experience and onboarding.

Prior to joining City Year, she dabbled in a range of non-profit experiences, including as Shelter Manager for a women’s domestic violence shelter, teaching life skills courses for parents working through Child Protective Services and providing case management for the homeless population.

Katherine was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, but grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, until moving to Texas to attend graduate school for Social Work. Life is complete with the perfect baby girl, partner in life and family who always keeps things interesting!

Tiarra Thomas, Managing Director of Development

Tiarra Thomas serves as Managing Director of Development with City Year Dallas, where she leads the fundraising efforts for the site. Since joining City Year Dallas, Tiarra has worked alongside the Executive Director and helped the site raise over $1.85 million in private philanthropy in the 2021-2022 school year—the highest in City Year Dallas history. Prior to joining City Year, Tiarra was Assistant Director of Development and Special Projects at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) in Cleveland, Ohio, where she oversaw strategic identification of leadership prospects and developed strategy to encourage domestic and international philanthropic support of the university.

In addition to her work in development, Tiarra serves on the board of the CWRU African American Alumni Association board as Secretary and Chair of the Student Affairs Committee. She also serves on the Board of Directors for New Journey Church in Cleveland as an advisor to the Pastor.

Tiarra holds a Bachelor’s in English from Case Western Reserve University and a Master’s of Public Administration from Cleveland State University, where she focused on Nonprofit Management.

Boomer Wijeyesinghe, Operations Director

Boomer Wijeyesinghe currently serves as the Operations Director for City Year Dallas. Boomer previously led AmeriCorps member teams as an Impact Manager at Elisha M. Pease and Cedar Crest Elementary Schools. Prior to joining the City Year Dallas team, Boomer taught Algebra 1 for four years at Thomas Jefferson High School in northwest Dallas—primarily working with English language learners and English as a second language (ESL) newcomers. Boomer is a proud Teach for America alum and also serves as the Policy Manager for Dallas Kids First, a nonprofit focused on advocating for quality Dallas ISD school board candidates.

Victoria Moore, Community Partnerships Manager

Victoria proudly serves as the Community Partnerships Manager. Prior to this role, she also served as Talent Acquistion Support and an Impact Manager. At the center of her work is the joy of being able to create meaningful partnerships with high schools to empower young leaders who want to make a change within their community, while providing them with more time for self-discovery and planning for their future educational/career endeavors. Victoria also enjoys connecting with community-based organizations that are aligned with our mission and values.

Prior to joining City Year, Victoria worked in the social work field that included providing case management for several foster care and adoption agencies , facilitating psychoeducational curriculum that included parenting and life skills to parents navigating through Child Protective Services, and providing case management for homeless teen mothers.

Victoria was born and raised in Kansas City, KS but has been a resident of Texas for nine years. She holds a Bachelor of Social Work that she received at Kansas State University, and her Master’s in social work that she earned from University of Texas at Arlington. Her greatest purpose is building a legacy with her amazing husband for their five beautiful children who are their driving force for everything that they do.