Dr. Rick Fernandez is a former superintendent, former high school principal, and education leader whose work sits at the intersection of district leadership, data strategy, school improvement, and education technology. He now serves as Chief Growth Officer for BlueKit Software, where he continues to support school systems as they navigate increasingly complex questions around performance, family choice, technology, and student readiness.
Based in Texas, Dr. Fernandez has built a reputation for speaking plainly about the realities facing public education. His leadership perspective is shaped by firsthand experience in schools and districts, as well as a deep belief that education systems need to understand their data with far more precision. Long before data infrastructure became a mainstream leadership conversation, he was focused on using predictive and descriptive analytics to help school systems better understand what was happening for students, educators, and communities.
Dr. Fernandez is also the co-host of the Boyz of EdTech podcast, where he joins four partners in the education technology space to explore the ideas, tools, and leadership questions shaping the future of learning. On LinkedIn, he regularly shares specific, targeted metrics on Texas public education, including the state’s rapid shift toward school choice and vouchers. His posts avoid the polished highlight-reel version of the work and instead focus on the numbers, tensions, and decisions education leaders must be willing to confront.
His connection with Dr. Michael Conner began at the TABSE Conference in Dallas, where a shared conviction, that every school system needs a data scientist, turned into a four-hour conversation. That same spirit carries into this episode: candid, analytical, and grounded in the urgent work of preparing school systems for what comes next.
For Dr. Fernandez, the leadership challenge ahead is clear. Schools must build systems that are more curious, more consistent, and more entrepreneurial if they are going to serve Generation Alpha and Generation Beta well.
