Leighangela Brady
Leighangela Brady wouldn’t be surprised if anyone wonders why she committed herself to eight months of Monday nights in front of her computer for the USC Rossier Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Certificate program. After all, she is a busy superintendent, and she already has a doctorate. Plus, she studied bilingual-multicultural education in college.
But Brady, who leads the 4,500-student National School District in San Diego County, is the first to admit that it’s not enough to ride on those credentials today.
“I told one of the professors that I took this class because I studied multicultural education. But I’m 50 now, so that was 25 or 30 years ago! So much has changed -- and so little has changed. I wanted to delve in deeper,” she said, “to really understand what I could be doing differently as a leader of a district to make people feel more included. You’re never done learning.”
Brady is a New England native, who packed her bags for California the day she graduated from the University of Connecticut. She launched her career as a bilingual teacher in the Cajon Valley Union School District, working closely with English learners – primarily students from Spanish-speaking and Middle Eastern backgrounds -- to develop their English language skills.
She went on to serve as a vice principal in the Santee School District and as a principal and assistant superintendent in the Encinitas Union School before taking on the superintendency of the National School District in 2016.
She is the first female superintendent in the 150-year history of the National district, where the enrollment is 85% Latino, 10% Filipino and 100% qualify for free and reduced lunch.
She hadn’t been in the Rossier program long before her learning led her to “look and listen differently than I did before” to what students were seeing and doing in their classrooms. She began to develop a new consciousness around what her Rossier professors call the “lived experiences” of students and their families.
One of the biggest changes she has already made in her district was launching a parents’ roundtable to hear their concerns about diversity, equity and inclusion. That, in turn led, has led to a major policy shift.
At the roundtables, special-ed parents told of their children’s struggles to feel connected to or included in the broader school community because of a longstanding district policy of concentrating special-ed classes in two of the district’s 10 schools. Because of this policy, many of the students are unable to attend their neighborhood school.
Now Brady is in the process of integrating special education students into schools in or near their own neighborhoods. “We are dismantling something that had been in place for over a decade that has kept our special education students from being part of their home school or near-home school community.”
Brady says being in the Rossier program also has expanded her understanding of the privileges and positionality she has as a white woman in a powerful role. Now she pays closer attention to ways she can help others – especially students -- fight for a voice in education.