Elizabeth Hicks, Principal & Founder of the Girls Academic Leadership Academy
A longtime educator within the LA Unified School District, one of Elizabeth Hick’s greatest dreams finally came to fruition this past fall when she opened and became Principal of the Girls Academic Leadership Academy, the first all-girls Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) school in Los Angeles. The school focuses on making sure the girls graduate on time, attend highly selective colleges on scholarship and have the resiliency needed to make it in male-dominated STEM fields like Engineering and Computer Science. Though her kids are now grown, Hicks loves spending time with her daughters, stepdaughters and stepson. In fact, even with all her accomplishments in education, it will always be her children that bring her the most pride. Hicks says, “I am most proud of raising mixed-race daughters (my daughters are African-American and white) in a world that is not accepting, and giving them the resiliency and positivity to withstand any negativity in their life. I am also proud of working on my masters degree when they were little children and I was working full-time as a teacher with long nights of writing papers. It was worth it not only in my career, but in terms of being a role model to them, as they have both told me that watching my commitment to education influenced their determination to succeed in education and career.”
photo: Elizabeth Hicks