Mayra Canizales Cruz is the founding partner of The Canizales Group and the creator of the LEAD-Eres Framework, designed to prepare Latino/x school leaders for the dual language principalship. She is committed to transforming schools into affirming spaces for bilingual children and adults by advancing anti-racist and linguistically liberating practices and systems. As a designer, leadership coach, and facilitator, Mayra is a thoughtful organizer who disrupts visible and invisible systems of power to center emergent bilingual students, educators, and families of color. Her expertise includes school leadership development, dual language education and facilitating courageous conversations with patience and power in both Spanish and English. Mayra believes all emergent bilinguals deserve dual language schools and partners with districts/networks to prepare Latino/x leaders for dual language leadership.

From 2014–2021, Mayra served as principal of Oyster-Adams Bilingual School in DC Public Schools, where she was an equity-driven leader who guided the school to earn a 2020 National Blue Ribbon Award in the Exemplary High Performing Schools category. That same year, she was recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as a National Blue Ribbon principal for outstanding school leadership. Mayra brings deep practitioner experience as a former dual language teacher, instructional coach, and assistant principal, and in 2012 received the DCPS Excellence in Teaching Award.

Mayra holds a bachelor’s degree in American Studies from the UC Berkeley, and a master’s degree in elementary education from Boston College. Her commitment to educational equity is deeply personal—as a daughter and sister of formerly undocumented immigrants, a first-generation college graduate, a former "ELL" and a product of bilingual education. She grew up in Hayward, California and lives in Washington, DC with her husband and their sweet pup, Tank. She also enjoys cooking, organizing her run club, listening to Bad Bunny and señora music, and watching documentaries.