Dr. LaSonja Ivory is a native of Dallas, Texas, and is proud to say she grew up in Oak Cliff. She credits her personal and professional success to the priority she places on building, nurturing and sustaining relationships.
As the newest member of the Board of Trustees, Dr. Ivory’s desire is to use her more than 25 years of K-12 educational experience, along with the knowledge she obtained as an educational researcher to serve the Duncanville learning community. As the CEO of Ivory Educational Consulting, Dr. Ivory provides professional development to school districts. Her company’s mission is to ‘Transform the Educational Experiences of Minority Students’ (TEEMS).
“I am a byproduct of caring teachers that created a culture of care,” Dr. Ivory said. “They are the reasons I became an educator. I am the educator and woman I am today because of the teachers God placed in my path; many of them left their fingerprints on my life.”
Dr. Ivory is proud to mention that one of the students on the cover of her second book, “Who Cares About Black Boys,” is a current Duncanville High School student. She points to that as evidence of a developed relationship.
Ms. Carmen, Dr. Ivory’s third grade teacher at W. W. Bushman Elementary, was one of the few teachers who went “beyond the call of duty”, Dr. Ivory said.
“Oftentimes, Ms. Carmen would comb my hair when I came to school,” Dr. Ivory said. “My mom worked two jobs and was often gone when I left for school.”
“Ms. Carmen called me inside from playing tetherball one morning and told me that she felt much safer with me in the building,” Dr. Ivory said. “I thought I was actually doing my teacher a favor by joining her and helping out in the classroom every morning. In hindsight, I understand she was only pretending to be afraid of being in the building alone because she detected a need.”
After graduating from high school and obtaining her associate degree from Mountain View College, Dr. Ivory moved to California where she lived for 25 years.
She returned home in 2016 to marry her husband Eric, and to become an assistant principal at Duncanville High School. Dr. Ivory said that it is her commitment to pay it forward and the value she places on the relationships she built with several stakeholders in Duncanville that encouraged her to seek a place on the Board of Trustees. In 2018, Dr. Ivory earned her Superintendent Certification and thanks Dr. Smith for being instrumental in her acceptance into the program.
“I believe that education should be the leveling field, the great equalizer,” Dr. Ivory said. “Our kids’ futures really depend on their education. That’s why it’s very important that we focus on that instruction piece and the culture of school.”