Meet Our Superintendent
Dr. Alexandra Estrella, a first-generation Latina-American, is a visionary, innovative, forward-thinking leader who does not accept the status quo regarding scholar development and learning opportunities.
An educator with over 26 years of experience, Dr. Estrella has spent the last three years in the role of Superintendent of Norwalk Public Schools (NPS). On July 1, 2020, Dr. Alexandra Estrella joined NPS as Superintendent of Schools where she and the Board developed a new five-year strategic plan for the district, with input from students, families, teachers, staff, and community members. With the goal of ensuring our students are future ready, the work included reviewing equity and disproportionality, special education, school facilities, and the overall structure of the district.
A new mission, vision, values, and strategic priorities now guide the district’s focus moving forward. The foundation of all action plans lives in the five strategic priorities future readiness, equity, excellence, engagement, and high-quality instruction and support.
Haga clic aquí para leer sobre nuestra Superintendente, la Dra. Estrella, en español.
Building Capacities
Dr. Estrella is known as an instructional leader who focuses on building the capacity of leaders, teachers, paraprofessionals, and coaches. She sets clear, measurable goals while utilizing an investigative lens to identify problems of practice that can be targeted to improve student achievement. Through supervisory coaching and the support of established professional learning communities, school leaders learned to develop theories of action that lead to systematic change and improvement of student outcome measures. School leaders create school improvement plans that include goals for literacy, math, equity, teacher teams, and family partnerships.
Dr. Estrella is passionately committed to educational equity. She believes in the power of schools to change lives and is resolute that no child should be kept from attaining his or her dream because of obstacles that can be overcome. She regularly plans workshops where the Board members engage in a trajectory of equity, excellence, and inclusion learning. In 2021, she hired the Deputy Superintendent of Excellence, Equity, and Inclusion to embed this important work throughout the district, starting with the School Board, embarking on a multi-year series of professional learning workshops, school and district administrators, site leaders, and central office staff who focus on achieving equity and addressing the disproportionality in data. Across these years, this professional learning has focused on building their capacity to address mindsets and beliefs such as colorblindness, deficit thinking, and poverty disciplining as well as interrupting systems and practices that are resulting in systemic disproportionate achievement outcomes. As a result of this collaborative approach in 2022-2023, 70% of schools met their equity goal, 10% made progress, and 20% continue striving to make progress.
To achieve this high standard of excellence, Dr. Estrella determined equity and access in classrooms require a refined focus of professional development on standards-aligned instruction and assessment with school administrators and teachers. She instilled dedicated teacher team meetings in each school’s master schedule for data-determined instruction (DDI) and to unpack a rollout of new literacy K-5 and math K-10 curricula. To facilitate and lead this critical work, K-12 literacy and math coaches hired and attended professional learning community sessions. To address the COVID learning loss in K-8, Dr. Estrella spearheaded the creation of an expanded scientifically research based intervention (SRBI) program that includes Tier II instruction, called What I Need (WIN), for all students with either acceleration or enrichment, as well as Tier III for students with special needs. She ensures that 16 literacy and 16 math intervention teachers are continually trained to lead WIN. The urgency of acceleration generates an all-hands-on-deck approach whereby all staff and the intervention teachers provide small-group support to all students during dedicated sacred time. Twenty-two percent of students moved from Tier II to Tier I instruction, or acceleration during 2022-2023. The number of students who needed to attend summer academy decreased by eighteen percent for the 2022-2023 year. Over the course of one year, there was a reduction of fifteen percent in special education referrals at the school level by supporting students in SRBI through direct intervention services.
Community Support
Dr. Estrella created a Family Center moving current employees into a centralized hub for a seamless registration process, providing families with the resources, information for equitable access to school choice programs and magnet schools, and guidance to navigate the educational system, in their native languages. With over 11,500 students in 21 schools and 1 Pre-Kindergarten program, yearly almost 2,100 new students enter our district to start or continue their academic journey toward graduation, and ultimately, college and/or a career. Typically, each year includes about 900 new kindergarteners and more than 450 MLLs. The district’s MLL Department is located on-site to facilitate registration, conduct language assessments, assist with class placements, and family programs.
Early Career
She started her career as a science teacher in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, and during her tenure, she designed curricula that supported scholars to develop their observational, critical, and analytical skills. She founded the first STEM fair within the school and challenged middle school students to take advanced science courses that allowed them to earn high school and NYS Regents credits. In 2008, Dr. Estrella founded Esperanza Preparatory Academy, a dual-language middle school in East Harlem, NY, and in 2011, she expanded the school to grades 6-12. She acquired several bilingual and technology grants that supported the school in the development of its dual-language program. She also started one of the first 6-12 special education inclusion programs in the City of New York.
Dr. Estrella became the Superintendent of Community School District Four in East Harlem, New York, as part of the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE). District Four comprises twenty-three schools serving approximately 13,500 students in grades 3K (kindergarten starting at 3 years old) through 12. During the 2019-2020 academic school year, she received three proclamations from community legislative officials highlighting her relentless commitment to improving the lives of children and families in the East Harlem community. As a direct reflection of her support to schools and her strategic leadership as the Superintendent at NYCDOE District Four, she increased the District’s New York State ELA scores by 22% and mathematics by 20%.
Education
Dr. Estrella earned a Doctor of Education with honors from Sage College of Albany, a Master’s Degree in Science Education from Pace University, and a Master’s Degree in Educational Leadership from Baruch College. She holds a Bachelor of Science from Fordham University Marymount, where she double majored in biology and chemistry. Dr. Estrella has been certified by the Connecticut State Department of Education as a superintendent of schools and for intermediate administration and supervision.
Dr. Estrella and her husband have three children, seventeen-year-old twin sons and a twenty-year-old daughter. Their twins currently attend high school at Norwalk Public Schools and their daughter is in college.
Please click on the following link to view Dr. Estrella's Resume.