Donn Kenneth Harris (born August 3, 1955, NYC) is a California Public School Administrator currently serving as the Executive Director for Creativity and the Arts in the San Francisco Unified School District. Prior to July 1, 2016, he was the Executive and Artistic Director of Governor Jerry Brown's public charter school, the Oakland School for the Arts, in downtown Oakland, California.
Harris's State and National profile have been greatly enhanced since 2013, when he was promoted to the position of 2nd Vice President of the national Arts Schools Network. Near the end of 2013, Governor Brown appointed him to the California Arts Council, the State Agency responsible for safeguarding the cultural heritage of California and supporting artists and arts programs through grant dispersals. In January of 2015 his fellow council members unanimously elected him to the Chairmanship, and he was re-elected to that post for a second term in 2016, followed by a third term in January, 2017. Working with a $5 million budget in 2014, the Council saw its revenues increase to $11 million in 2015 and a surprising $18 million in 2016, some of it in one-time funds. Extra funding from the Department of Corrections for the Artists-in-Prisons programs brought the final 2016 total to nearly $25 million. The increases were a sign to the arts community that a new era was developing, one where the workforce needed to be filled by bold problem-solvers and innovative thinkers, qualities which Harris, among others, cite that the arts promoted. The CAC began weaving the creative economy into its thinking and messaging in 2013, and this attempt to widen the base of supporters was successful, creating a momentum that put the arts into the swirling current of the decade's fast-flowing economic river.
Harris rose quickly in San Francisco education circles after arriving in the city in 1990.