Daniel Allen, Ed.D., NBCT

I began my teaching career in a comprehensive high school in Mesa Public Schools, the largest school district in the state of Arizona.  As a Spanish and AVID Elective teacher, I obtained my National Board Certification in Teaching Languages Other Than English, was chosen by my peers as Teacher of the Year, and was honored as a AVID National Summer Institute Teacher Speaker.  In 2010, I left the classroom to pursue my Ed.M in School Leadership at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where I was named both an Urban Scholar and was selected by my student peers and professors for the Intellectual Contribution Faculty Tribute award.  I next worked as the principal of City Arts and Technology (CAT) High School in San Francisco with Envision Education.  During my tenure as principal, CAT was featured by the Stanford Center for Opportunity in Education (SCOPE) as a national model for personalized learning and received both Gold Ribbon and Title I Achievement awards for academic excellence from the State of California.  I simultaneously received my Ed.D. from the Leadership for Educational Equity Program (LEEP) at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Education, focusing my research on the socialization of new teachers in urban school settings.  I then left the Bay Area in 2015 to join the leadership team of Santa Ana Unified in Southern California, where I launched a portfolio of specialty schools, led a team that won a multi-million dollar XQ super school design grant, and redesigned teacher and principal evaluation programs.  As Santa Ana’s Assistant Superintendent of K-12 Teaching and Learning, I oversaw the academic program for nearly 50,000 students across 60 school sites.  I have authored multiple education research publications throughout my career, including as a research assistant with the Education Policy Studies Laboratory and as a Fulbright Scholar in Brazil.  In 2020, my love for international education took our family to Costa Rica, where I currently serve as the General Director for the Lincoln School, one of largest private international schools in Latin America.  My wife Lynzie and I are the proud parents of six children.