The proud daughter of Mexican immigrant parents, Dr. Feliza I. Ortiz-Licon has invested nearly twenty- five years in the field of education working in various capacities, and at various scales, but primarily focused on issues of educational equity, specifically as it relates to Latino students and multilingual learners.

A committed and equity-focused champion for all students, Feliza has worked at the local, state, and national level to advance responsive policies and create equitable educational opportunities for BILPOC students through asset-based programs that are anchored in culturally and linguistically responsive approaches. Feliza currently serves as Chief of Staff for the New Teacher Center (NTC), an organization driven by the mission to disrupt the predictability of educational inequities for systemically underserved students by accelerating educator effectiveness.

Prior to joining NTC, Feliza served as the Chief Policy and Advocacy Officer at Latinos for Education and as Principal of Education Programs at UnidosUS (formerly National Council of La Raza). These roles enhanced Feliza’s passion for reshaping the narrative and opportunities afforded to Latinos and deepened her work, at the national level, to advance policies that create equitable Latino representation within the education sector and teaching profession, improve outcomes for Latino students from birth to college, and ensure the voice of Latino leaders is represented from the classroom to the boardroom.

Feliza holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Los Angeles in Political Science, a master’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley in City and Regional Planning, and a doctoral
degree in Education Leadership from the University of California, Irvine. In 2015, Governor Jerry Brown appointed Feliza to the CA State Board of Education where she served 6.2 million students for five fulfilling years. Feliza is happily married to a seasoned educator in the Long Beach Unified School District, and they have two children attending a dual language program in the same district.