Dr. Lisa Stanley, Superintendent, North Texas Collegiate Academy
Dr. Lisa Stanley is among the first 100 superintendents in the nation to earn her National Superintendent Certification through AASA, completed her Certificate in School Management and Leadership from Harvard Graduate School of Education and was a member of Southern Methodist University’s 2021 District Leadership Fellows. From starting her educational career as a Teacher’s Aide to her current role of Superintendent, Dr. Stanley’s passion is serving children and ensuring that all needs are met and all barriers are removed.
With 98% of students considered ‘at-risk’ and 97% of students disadvantaged, the campuses at North Texas Collegiate Academy are traditionally hard to staff. Dr. Stanley has implemented unique and sustainable teacher retention strategies that have increased teacher retention fro 65% in 2018 to 93% or higher from 2019-2023.
Implementing “Stay Interviews” each December in which every staff member has a personal meeting with her to discuss what they’d like to see over the Spring semester to ensure they stay for the next school year, creating a “Master’s University” in which teachers can earn their advanced degrees at no cost to them through job-embedded research and practicuums, to using open-ended surveys allowing teachers’ fingerprints on every major decision, and other such practices, Dr. Stanley has turned NTxCA from being a school of last-resort for teachers to being a destination district where teachers want to become part of the team to fulfill the school’s vision to #LOVEfirstTEACHsecond.
