Dana Boyd

In her five years as principal at East Point Elementary, Dana Boyd led the school in a two-year collaboration with Learning Forward as a Learning School Alliance. This has included collaboration with schools across North America and participation in professional learning opportunities to increase student achievement. To develop school-wide best teaching practices, Boyd’s team developed a learning platform focused on problems of practice, presenting on their process and experiences at the Learning Forward National Conference. Boyd has led the development of professional learning communities at East Point by supporting team leaders in educating their grade level teams on best practices, resulting in deep cultural changes at the school and progress in closing the achievement gap. Boyd spearheaded an Extended Learning Time (ELT) initiative, engaging all office and instructional staff to use data to target and implement necessary interventions and enrichment. By transforming special education classes toward inclusion of all students, Boyd has supported East Point in increasing its STAAR scores, TELPAS, and employee survey results while also increasing enrollment. According to Boyd, these changes allow the entire campus to take collective responsibility for all learners. Boyd was named Texas Distinguished Principal of the Year in 2016 and has a B.A. and a M.A. in Educational Leadership from the University of Texas, El Paso. Boyd is a participant in the Art of Leadership Institute at Harvard Graduate School.