Scott Bess

Head of School, Purdue University’s Polytechnic High School

Scott is the Head of School for Purdue University’s Polytechnic High School in Indianapolis, which launched on July 31, 2017. Scott’s focus is setting the vision and strategy for the initial campus, and planning for additional locations in the future. Targeting underserved students who might not otherwise be qualified to go on to obtain post-secondary credentials, Purdue Polytechnic’s challenge is to “reinvent” high school to meet the current and future needs of those students.

Prior to joining Purdue, Scott was the President and COO of Goodwill Education Initiatives, Inc. and founded The Excel Center, which offers adults who have dropped out of school an opportunity to earn a diploma. The Excel Center now serves over 5,000 students in multiple states and has more than 3,000 graduates.
In 2013, Scott launched the Indiana Network of Independent Schools, which provided a range of back office and curricular services to traditional, charter and private schools.

Scott, a graduate of Purdue University (B.S., Mathematics) and Marian University (M.A., Education) was a teacher, an executive in the IT field and business owner. Scott has four grown children and lives in Danville, Indiana with his wife, Robin. He served on the School Board of Trustees in Danville for sixteen years, the Board of EmployIndy for eight years, and currently serves on the Board of Ivy Tech Community College Central Indiana Region, the Region 5 Works Council and the Washington, DC Goodwill Excel Center.