Current Role: Executive Director and Cofounder for the Teaching and Leading Initiative of Oklahoma
Fellowship Role: Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction, Cleveland Public Schools (Cleveland, OK)
Joanna cofounded and serves as the Executive Director of the Teaching and Leading Initiative in Oklahoma.
During the Fellowship, she continued in her role as the Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction in Cleveland, Oklahoma, where she was responsible for creating and implementing a comprehensive vision for student learning for the entire district. In that role, she successfully hired and trained two-thirds of the principal staff in areas of instructional leadership and dramatically increased teacher satisfaction with evaluation processes. She also led a team of teachers to completely rewrite math curriculum with the new academic standards. Prior to this role, Joanna worked in various capacities for Teach For America Oklahoma, including the Director of Instructional Support, School Director and Coaching Lead at summer institute, and Manager of Teacher Leader Development in Tulsa and Oklahoma City. She managed a team of coaches to do turnaround work with beginning teachers.
Joanna holds an Ed.D. in Education Administration and Curriculum Supervision from the University of Oklahoma, an M.Ed. in Elementary Education from Arizona State University, and a B.S. in Psychology and Speech Communication from University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.