Email: samantha@texastrees.org

Samantha Bradley is the Cool Schools Manager for the Texas Trees Foundation (TTF), a private nonprofit focused on urban forestry, green infrastructure, and sustainable design. Cool Schools, an on-going TTF initiative, connects students and teachers to nature by planting trees on the campus while also creating fun and engaging outdoor experiential learning areas. Schools located in “park deserts” are also designated as Cool School Parks, open to the public during non-school hours. These schools receive playground equipment, walking trails, benches, and other amenities for both the school’s and community’s enjoyment. 

Samantha manages both the program and project aspects of the Cool Schools Program, acting as the primary liaison between its partners and the foundation, ensuring successful implementation at each school. Samantha manages the process from start to finish, overseeing engagement, landscape design, tree planting, budget, and construction. She also works with others at TTF to strategize growth and build better processes around the Cool Schools Program.      

Ms. Bradley began her career in education working primarily in the areas of ESL and Bilingual Education for almost 10 years. In addition to her role as a classroom teacher, she was an elementary Bilingual seminar instructor as well as a middle school and post-secondary ESL academic coordinator. Her favorite aspects of teaching were the experiential, hands-on activities and relationship-building with students and parents. Her vision to have a greater impact on the community, outside the four walls of her classroom, eventually pulled her away from a traditional teaching position. 

After working primarily in transportation planning research while attending graduate school, she found the intersection of many of her passions at the Texas Trees Foundation. She graduated in May 2020 with her Master’s in City and Regional Planning from the University of Texas-Arlington. Her passion to see communities empowered, connected, healthy, and educated drives her work professionally. Her favorite activity of the year is Tree Planting Day, where every student, no matter their age, helps plant up to 100 trees on their school campus in a single day. She believes passionately in the work Texas Trees Foundation is doing in and around Dallas and looks forward to helping the organization expand its reach in the near future.