Featured Alumni

MICHAEL ROUNDS

The Broad Superintendents Academy Class of 2010
Chief Operations Officer
Kansas City School District
Brigadier General (Ret.), U.S. Army

“Our country faces no more important and difficult challenge than providing the right public education for each of our children. Leadership, innovation and accountability are all key elements in making a difference in our public schools faced with the greatest challenges. I look forward to being part of the solution as we address these challenges and prepare our children to compete and prosper in an increasingly complex world.”

Brigadier General Michael Rounds was recently appointed as chief operations officer for Kansas City School District. Previously, Rounds served as the director of the Human Performance Resource Center at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Services in Bethesda, Maryland. Before that Rounds served as the director of Operational War Plans and Joint Force Development on the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. In this role, his responsibilities included coordinating the development of the military’s major contingency plans, accrediting joint education for the military, ensuring that joint military doctrine was current and relevant, and managing the $800 million joint training budget. Previously, Rounds served as the commander of Operations Group, Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana where he was responsible for executing the certification exercises for many of the units deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2002 he led the Army’s effort to organize, equip and train a new type of unit that was designed to deploy the 4,000 man organization into a combat environment anywhere in the world within 96 hours. He subsequently deployed this new organization, the first Stryker Brigade, to Iraq in 2003 to participate in stability and reconstruction efforts. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the United States Military Academy; a master’s degree in east asian studies from Yale University; and a master’s degree in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College.  Rounds is a member of the 2010 class of The Broad Superintendents Academy.