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Sara S. Clements Vice President, State Government Relations, McGuireWoods Consulting LLC

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Sara has more than a decade of experience in education policy and government affairs, starting as a K-12 public school teacher. She thrives on helping clients achieve complex and challenging goals and has become a respected and trusted voice for education policy issues in Tallahassee.

Sara joined McGuireWoods Consulting in 2018 after six years of leading government affairs for nonprofits in Florida. Prior to MWC, Sara led external and legislative affairs for Step Up For Students, the largest K-12 scholarship funding organization in the nation. Before that, she was the Florida Legislative Affairs Director for the Foundation for Excellence in Education. In addition to education, Sara has experience in the areas of child welfare, criminal justice, healthcare, insurance, gaming, financial services, and more.

Recognized for her policy expertise, Sara was named a 2024 National Voices Fellow by national education advocacy group 50CAN, and, in 2023, she was appointed by the Florida State Board of Education to serve on the state’s new Charter School Review Commission. In 2022, McGuireWoods Consulting named Sara the Atkinson-Payne Pro Bono Award winner in recognition of her accomplishments on behalf of the Florida Foster and Adoptive Parent Association. While still in the classroom,  Sara was nominated for Orange County Public Schools’ Teacher of the Year award in 2011.

Sara received her bachelor’s degree in English Education from the University of North Florida in 2007 and her master’s degree in Education Policy and Evaluation from Florida State University in 2014.

Sara is a member of Leadership Florida (Connect Class VI), the American Enterprise Institute’s State Leadership Network, and founder of Red Dog Blue Dog, an annual celebrity bartender charity event that provides an opportunity for Republican and Democrat lawmakers to compete for a cause. In her spare time, she volunteers as a guardian ad litem in Florida’s Second Judicial Circuit and fosters dogs through a local animal rescue organization. Sara lives in Tallahassee with her daughter.

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McGuireWoods Consulting LLC (“MWC”) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the McGuireWoods LLP law firm. From time to time, various McGuireWoods lawyers provide non-legal services to MWC clients, but MWC cannot provide legal services or advice. Therefore, any work MWC performs for a client does not give rise to an attorney-client relationship or privilege. Should you require legal services from McGuireWoods, as well as consulting services from MWC, you must engage the law firm separately.

Experience

  • Represented one of the nation’s largest and most influential education advocacy organizations in the state of Florida, on issues such as standards and assessments, school accountability, teacher quality, educational choice, early literacy, competency-based learning, and more.
  • Helped pass and implement the largest and most flexible education savings account in the nation, and expand it four years in a row.
  • Lead efforts to dramatically reform the individualized education plan (IEP) process in Florida as it pertains to decisions on standards and graduation, resulting in the most parent-friendly law in the nation at the time.