Michelle Cleveland is the Director of Accountability and Educational Technology and the Learning Network Lead of Cluster 1 for San Bernardino City Unified School District. San Bernardino City Unified School District located about 50 miles east of Los Angeles, CA. Michelle has been working in public education as middle grades teacher, school site administrator and district level leader since 2001. Michelle received her BA in Biology from Scripps College in 2000 and her MA in Educational Leadership in 2007 from Chapman University. Michelle was honored with the 2018 Scripps College Distinguished Alumnae Award for her work in education and school transformation.
Michelle has dedicated her life to transforming public education in one the most underserved and neediest regions of the country. She has experience in designing, implementing and leading school improvement movements at secondary level from within the classroom and as a school leader. In addition to her work as a Programmatic Director, Michelle is the supervising director for a cluster of 10 district schools, working to develop replicable practices and professional development with each site and principal. Additionally, Michelle is a principal coach within the district and a facilitator for the National Institute for School Leadership. Michelle’s focus is working to effect change across the entire organization to meet the needs of all students, ensuring that all students learn and grow and succeed at high levels, prepared for the challenges of excelling in a 21st-century global workforce.
In her role as principal of Serrano Middle School, Michelle built capacity in a team of instructional leaders to transform the school site. When Michelle started at Serrano in 2011, the school had been named a persistently low achieving school under President Obama’s Race to the Top program. Within 4 years, Serrano transformed itself into an exemplary middle school, transitioning from one of the lowest-performing schools in the state to a California Gold Ribbon School Award Recipient in 2015 and National School to Watch in 2016 and 2019. With the designation of National School to Watch, Serrano joined an elite group of only 80 schools in California and 475 schools in the United States to receive the honor. Serrano continues to be an exemplary middle school, implementing a 1:1 educational technology program, ensuring that each of the 950 students receive an iPad to use at school and at home. This allowed Serrano to seamlessly move into distance learning during the school closures in 2020. One of the most transformative practices that Serrano developed is their Champion Saturday Home Visit program where the entire staff visits homes of all students in the school on Saturday mornings, providing outreach services and resources to the parents and families in their school community. Since the inception of the program in 2012, Serrano’s staff members have visited nearly 4,800 homes. The presence within the community has allowed the teachers to design interventions, provide resources and give support to students systematically, increasing student achievement and reducing suspensions from school by nearly 60% over 5 years.