Diana Lebeaux is a passionate educator and leader who brings deep experience across classrooms, nonprofits, and school systems. A first-generation college graduate, Diana earned her teaching certification from Bates College, and taught in Missouri and Maine before earning a master’s in Educational Leadership from NYU’s Steinhardt School.
Rather than returning to a traditional classroom, Diana accepted a leadership role at the Boys Club of New York, where she built innovative education programs from the ground up—including literacy and STEM initiatives—while managing a large team of part-time educators. Over time, she transitioned into curriculum development and organizational leadership, helping shape youth development and mentorship programming across the organization.
After moving to Boston, Diana worked in school administration before joining CCE (the Center for Collaborative Education), where she led district and school design work with a focus on personalized learning, PLC development, equity audits, and large-scale school redesign. After nearly five years, she brought her expertise to The Teacher Collaborative, where she championed educator-led innovation and professional learning.
Q. What excites you about coming to Power of Place?
A. I love the emphasis on the community as a whole, and the emphasis on making sure everyone from the superintendent to classroom teachers to guidance counselors to school leaders, have a seat at the table. It’s important that they all have a seat at the table and can sort of share in the learning in ways that are both role specific, but also really support the growth of the education programming for the students that they serve.
This is a shift for me, since our work has been so focused specifically on the teacher role at the teacher collaborative. I love supporting teachers and unapologetically making sure teachers get what they need, because there’s a lot of places that don’t worry about that. But I also really am excited about being able to contextualize that more as part of the broader systemic work, of seeing how all of the adults who care about what’s happening in their schools can work together and in their own ways.
I’m also excited to be able to make sure that the legacy of the Teacher Collaborative lives on in ways that are really meaningful and dynamic. There’s still value and meaning to that body of work that will become fused with the broader work of Power of Place.
Q. What are the core values that matter most to you in your work?
A. I care deeply about educational equity. This means making sure that every student – particularly those who may have traditionally been marginalized – is fully included and given equal opportunities and supports. Looking at that from another level, making sure that the staff community is inclusive of a diverse array of identities and ideas, and providing actual systems of support, facilitating conversations that enable that to happen.
I care deeply about maintaining a human-first orientation, which is true about Power of Place. Every person who works in a school community brings their own identity and their own passions and expertise and commitment. Lastly, collaboration is a big part of my value matrix.
Q. How would your best friend describe you?
A. Someone who knows me really well would describe me as somebody who is very passionate about my work to the point of being a lot of spillover into my daily life. It’s not something that I compartmentalize. What I do for work is part of the values I live. I don’t choose to do any work that doesn’t also feel like something I’m personally excited about and committed to doing. I would definitely be described as a bit of a nerd, a bit of a wonk. I love getting in the weeds. I get very passionate. I go down really productive rabbit holes in my work and like exploring things and figuring them out and constantly iterating to bring out something strong. I’m very family oriented. I think that’s part of why I think for me, it’s so important that I’m doing work that’s also living my values, and that’s also something I’m excited and passionate about.
Q. What do you do when you’re not working?
A. I am a bookworm – a multiple books person. At any given time I usually have a fiction, a non-fiction, and a light-hearted one going at the same time. I’m challenging myself to read 60 books this year, and I’m already ahead of schedule.
Q. When you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up?A. When I was a kid, I didn’t know what my limits were. So I had three goals that all seemed totally doable at the time. One was to be a teacher. One was to be a theoretical astrophysicist. One was to be a poet. I can definitely envision most people being able to pull off two of the three, but all three might be beyond me. So while I have somewhat sacrificed astrophysics, I will say I’m making a lot of progress on the other two.
Diana officially joins Power of Place on July 15 as Senior Director, The Teacher Collaborative Initiative, where she will continue to lead the work she shaped at TTC. You can reach her at dlebeaux@powerofplacellc.org.