Dr. Lucy Villareal

Dr. Lucy A. Villarreal is a former classroom teacher, counselor, school principal, University Educator Preparation Director, Assistant Dean and currently leadership specialist and consultant. Her career spans more than 2 decades in public education and nearly a decade in higher education.  Her leadership work includes working with more than 40 school districts across the state of Texas developing and delivering professional learning and support to district administrators, teachers, and para professionals in the areas of innovative practices, coaching, leadership, student learning, professional evaluations, and most recently teacher pipelines.

Dr. Villarreal’s last professional experience includes serving as Assistant Dean and Director of the Educator Preparation Program in the College of Education and Human Performance at Texas A&M University – Kingsville where she was responsible for working with partner districts teams to develop and implement high quality teacher development systems that enabled a strong teacher pipeline to include strategies and best practices for the recruitment, development, and support of teacher candidates.

She is the author of a dozen of scholarly articles regarding teacher preparation, teacher recruitment, teacher development and retention.  In 2018 Dr. Villarreal conducted a qualitative research on the perceptions and perspectives of educational leaders of the value of Twitter on educator morale and professional development. Research work she presented at the National level at the American Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).
Her professional interests include innovative practices, professional development, teacher preparation, educator morale, digital leadership, school climate, culture, and the use of Twitter for professional development. Dr. Villarreal is passionate about helping school districts create environments designed for evolution, responsiveness, and continuous learning.

On a personal note, Dr. Villarreal is a “travel junkie” and loves to travel the world.  She describes herself as a Pollyanna, edunerd, change-agent and forever teacher.  Her extensive and unique experience in teacher preparation, leadership development, and professional learning in public education, regional education centers, and higher education makes her a one-of-a-kind trainer and presenter.