Simaran Bakshi is a transformational education leader with more than two decades of experience turning around struggling schools, launching successful campuses, and developing strong leadership teams. She has served in roles ranging from classroom teacher to regional executive, consistently taking on complex assignments and delivering measurable academic growth.

Throughout her career, Simaran has led multiple schools to an “A” rating, building disciplined academic systems while strengthening culture, operations, and governance alignment. Her work has been recognized statewide, including the Florida TaxWatch Principal Leadership Award. She has also been published by the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy and the Fordham Institute, where her leadership practices and school improvement work have been highlighted as models of effective turnaround strategy.

Most recently, Simaran served as Executive Director for a successful multi-school charter network in Jacksonville where she delivered sustained academic gains for students. In that role, she was responsible for academic performance, financial stewardship, compliance, and leadership development across multiple campuses. Her leadership emphasized clear systems, strong accountability, and investment in people — resulting in high staff retention and sustained performance gains.

Simaran joins YMCA Tiger Academy with a focused purpose: to strengthen academic systems, improve the school grade trajectory, and build the operational clarity necessary for long-term stability and potential expansion.

Her philosophy is simple: sustainable school improvement requires both strong systems and strong relationships. When expectations are clear, accountability is consistent, and leaders are developed intentionally, academic results follow.

She believes YMCA Tiger Academy has the foundational strengths to move forward with urgency and confidence — and she looks forward to working collaboratively with all stakeholders to write Tiger’s next chapter.

Cordell Manns is the kind of principal YMCA Tiger Academy needs for its next chapter: disciplined, data-driven, student-centered, and deeply trusted by families and staff. He brings experience as a K–8 principal, assistant principal of instruction, instructional coach, elementary teacher, and middle school reading teacher —giving him a clear understanding of what strong teaching, strong culture, and strong leadership must look like at every level of the school.

Under Cordell’s leadership, his previous K–8 campus of approximately 1,000 students became the highest-performing charter school in its network and achieved 100% teacher retention. He is also a multi-year educator award recipient and holds a master’s degree in educational leadership. He is a multi-year educator award recipient and holds a Master’s Degree in Educational Leadership from Nova Southeastern University. He holds certification in Educational Leadership and Primary Education.

As Principal of YMCA Tiger Academy, Cordell brings the vision, discipline, and instructional focus to build a high-performing school where expectations are clear, data drives decisions, teachers feel supported, families feel connected, and students are known, loved, and pushed to achieve at the highest level.