Kia Johnson

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Director, PreK-12 Language and Literacy Division in the Language and Culture Education Division

Kia Johnson has 14 years of experience serving, teaching, and supporting English learners and their educators in North Carolina and Virginia. She has served as an ESL teacher, ESL Department Chair, and ESL Lead Teacher before reaching her current role. In her most recent role, she was the English Learner Assessment and Title III Specialist for the Virginia Department of Education where she provided oversight for ELP assessment implementation and compliance within EL programs across the Commonwealth’s 133 divisions, comprising over 115,000 English learners. Her notable work included initiating an alternative calculation model for determining overall English language proficiency (ELP) for students with disabilities that precluded their participation in one or two language domains of their state ELP assessment.

Kia is well-versed in language instruction and educational policy and administration, with experience providing services in the areas of research, policy, practice, and innovation in integrating language and student identity and culture into education.

Kia holds a Master of Education in Teaching English as a Second Language from Jones International University, a Master of Education in Educational Administration from California University of Pennsylvania (PennWest), and a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish from Fayetteville State University. She is currently a doctoral candidate at Loyola Marymount University, pursuing a Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership for Social Justice. Her research focuses on academic achievement for multilingual learners in economically stable school systems. In her free time, Kia enjoys spending time with her husband and their 5 daughters. Her interests include collecting various comic-themed figurines, painting, and delving into deep conversations about movies of all genres.