Antonia Issa Lahera, Ed.D.
Antonia Issa Lahera has been a dedicated, vigilant and humanistic educator since 1981.
Working in Saudi Arabia and then for the Long Beach Unified School District she taught elementary, middle school and high school English in a broad range of settings including a dual immersion school to a Business Roundtable partner school. In Long Beach she worked for the highly innovative superintendent Dr. Carl Cohn, who promoted her to leadership. She worked as a Mentor and Staff Developer and site administrator. As a principal she led a 9th grade retention school and a reconstituted grades 4-8 school.
She led the School Leadership Program at California State University Dominguez Hills as a professor for fifteen years and administered 4 large federal grants during these years. The CSUDH School Leadership program continues as one of the largest in California for urban leader preparation and serves mostly first-generation educators serving in marginalized communities in both district and charter schools. Graduates of this program currently serve as urban leaders all over Los Angeles county.
Her career and life have been centered around creating a just and equitable world where communities are honored and there is a space and place for all. She has a doctorate in Urban Leadership from the University of Southern California. Her work with the National Urban Alliance has taken her New York, Minnesota, California and Newark and she has been humbled and enlightened working with these amazing people.
As an educator and leader with more than 40 years of experience she continues to try to get it right and hopes she is contributing, building and inspiring the next generation of educators. In addition to teaching and leading, she has worked all over the nation as a consultant and with the Literacy Leadership Collaborative, EdMicU, and the National Urban Alliance. She has numerous publications and continues to write, study and learn.
Antonia Issa Lahera
aissalahera@gmail.com