Candidate for
Board Member; Cincinnati City School District

A native Ohioan, Eileen moved to Cincinnati in 1977. She met and married Jim Reed, a native Cincinnatian and Withrow High School graduate. Eileen and Jim have six grown children and seven grandchildren with an eighth on the way. She has always had a passion for children, often caring for other children. In 1987 Eileen and Jim were named Hamilton County Adoptive Parents of the Year.

After practicing clinical social work for several years, Eileen attended the University of Cincinnati College of Law, graduating in 1984. While married with children, Eileen made the Moot Court Team. Her Administrative Law Team won 1st place in the National Administrative Law Competition and she was awarded the Shmieg-Weil Award for being the Outstanding Moot Court Competitor in 1984.

After Law School, Eileen became a staff attorney for the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati. She served as a Hamilton County Assistant Prosecutor before being tapped as a Juvenile Court Referee. During her stint at Juvenile Court, Eileen spent three years handling truancy cases in Juvenile Court. These cases were heard at the school site and it was there that she developed a thorough understanding of attendance issues in the Cincinnati Public School system.

In 1992, then Mayor Tillery appointed Eileen to the Mayor's Commission on Children. While serving on the Commission, she opened and became Director of Children's Defense Fund in Cincinnati. For the next 11 years, Eileen advocated for children in Cincinnati and eventually, across the state. She and her staff documented the needs of Cincinnati children in child health, child welfare, early childhood care and education, and k-12 education and used those statistics to propose sound policies to legislators + from the federal to the local level.

Eileen was appointed to both the Ohio Department of Education's Achievement Gap Task Force and the Early Childhood Task Force. While serving on those bodies, she learned about educational issues across the state and noted how Cincinnati did in comparison to other areas of the state. Under Steven Adamowski, Eileen became the only community member of the CPS Redesign Team where she developed a thorough understanding of the CPS method of assessing school and student achievement. During that time, she and her staff at the Children's Defense Fund were responsible for engaging parents and community in both the academic redesign process and, subsequently, the CPS $1 billion building program.

Eileen has been, and continues to be, passionate about the needs of children. Her decision to become a CPS School Board Candidate was prompted by her persistent desire to serve the children in Cincinnati and to use her many skills and extensive experiences to do so.