Despite the research of Chief Diversity Officers in K-12 educational setting being limited, these DEI-focused professionals have become a recent emergent practice in Connecticut school districts. Informed by the research on Chief Diversity Officers in corporate organizational and higher educational structures, this phenomenological study aimed to explore the emerging phenomenon of Chief Diversity Officers in Connecticut K-12 school districts to understand the functional responsibilities of these DEI-focused practitioners and how they are being integrated into the educational structural systems. Employing the use of semi-structured, open-ended interviews, this study revealed great variability in the titles and position of authority among the 14 Chief Diversity Officers who participated in this study. With Chief Diversity Officers possessing expansive responsibilities, many existed in the technical and operational space, focusing on improving programmatic equity. However, some Chief Diversity Officers described the importance of adaptive functions that focused on strengthening professional capacity to ensure equity is shared and practiced throughout their school district. Despite many Chief Diversity Officers functioning as advisors of equity, some possessed the capacity to engage in supervision of faculty and administrators. Not possessing authority to make unilateral decisions, Chief Diversity Officers described their role as "thought partners", focused on strengthening interrelationships as they collaborated laterally and vertically and extended their influence beyond their school community. However, Chief Diversity Officers described alignment with the Superintendent as being critical, especially since a lack of standards guide the functional responsibility of Chief Diversity Officers in K-12 school districts. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]