LIDER
Leadership in Education for Equity and Excellence with Results
A professional development program for principals and supervisors of public schools in Mexico, grounded in international academic expertise and rooted in the everyday realities of each school.
When school leaders grow, schools change. When schools change, students learn more.
"A school may have the same budget, the same programs, and the same conditions as another. What makes the difference in outcomes is its leadership."
School principals today face increasingly complex challenges: student dropout, learning gaps, difficulties in school climate and coexistence, and teacher burnout. LIDER is a training and mentoring program designed to strengthen their capacities in ways that are practical and directly applicable.
Throughout the program, each participant will identify a priority challenge in his or her own school and design an evidence-based improvement proposal. Participants will also join a network of school leaders committed to strengthening their educational communities.
About the program
What is LIDER?
LIDER is an intensive professional development program that strengthens the leadership capacities of school principals within Mexico's public education system. It combines international academic rigor with direct application to the day-to-day practice of each school.
The program runs in a hybrid format: in-person sessions open and close the experience to foster genuine networking among participants, while synchronous online sessions carry the work forward throughout the program.
LIDER is designed for principals of public basic-education schools who wish to strengthen their capacity to transform their institutions through leadership. Specific eligibility criteria and the selection process will be published with the official call for the 2026 pilot.
What sets it apart
Why LIDER?
A genuine gap in the system
Leadership development in Mexico tends to focus on administrative compliance. LIDER places instructional leadership and genuine school improvement at its center.
Evidence, not prescription
Each module draws on rigorous research into what actually works in public schools serving communities facing inequality.
Practice, not only theory
Participants design and implement real strategies in their own schools throughout the program, supported by ongoing coaching.
Institutional partners
Who stands behind LIDER
University of California, Los Angeles
Academic backing and curriculum design for the program
Top 20 worldwide · QS, Times Higher & US NewsSchool of Education & Information Studies →
Principal Leadership Institute →
Emory University
Personal wellbeing curriculum and social-emotional learning (SEE Learning)
A leading medical research institution in the United StatesCenter for Contemplative Science →
Siete Mares
Strategic partner for operations and outreach
Design foundations
The four pillars of LIDER
The program does not start from a blank slate. Its curriculum integrates the best of four proven sources, each adapted to the specific context of Mexico's public schools.
International school leadership development programs
Direct experience contributed by leaders from Mexico's public schools
Building on these four pillars, LIDER places particular emphasis on tools and skills for everyday use in Mexican public schools: concrete resources that principals can apply from the very first week of the program to the daily management of their schools, rather than conceptual frameworks reserved for future reflection.
Academic and clinical expertise
Program faculty
LIDER's faculty contribute the research, curriculum design, and international academic expertise that underpin the program: specialists from UCLA, Emory, and other institutions in education policy, school leadership, and social-emotional learning.
Imelda L. Nava, Ph.D.
Program faculty · UCLA
Dr. Nava holds a Ph.D. in Biology from UCLA and serves as Co-Director of UCLA STEM Cultivating Excellence, where she administers multimillion-dollar federally funded teacher residency initiatives. Her work spans the design of urban and rural teacher preparation models, the development of pathways into computer science teaching, and an extensive body of scholarship on social justice and culturally responsive pedagogy.
Her contribution to the program brings advanced methodologies for preparing school administrators centered on equity and innovation. Dr. Nava equips principals with tools for observing instructional practice, inclusive pedagogical approaches, and strategies for strengthening community engagement and transformational leadership in complex settings.
Marco A. Nava, Ed.D.
Program faculty · UCLA
Dr. Nava brings extensive experience as an administrator in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and holds an Ed.D. in K-12 Leadership from the University of Southern California, where he oversaw statewide induction, credentialing, and development programs for principals and superintendents. His experience includes managing multimillion-dollar educational effectiveness budgets and directing international leadership exchange networks in partnership with institutions in Chile and the United States.
His contribution to the program centers on building genuine leadership capacity and providing reflective coaching for school governance. Dr. Nava guides principals in continuous improvement, instructional leadership, the implementation of equity-centered practices, and the development of concrete strategies to safeguard the wellbeing and self-care of school leaders.
Cecilia Rios-Aguilar, Ph.D.
Program faculty · UCLA
Born in Mexico City, Dr. Rios-Aguilar is Professor and Chair of the Department of Education at UCLA. She holds a Ph.D. in Educational Theory and Policy from the University of Rochester and a degree in Economics from ITAM. Her international standing as a researcher — including her election to the National Academy of Education in the United States and her co-directorship of Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) — reflects a deep command of critical quantitative data and the "funds of knowledge" framework.
Her presence in the program enriches participating principals by connecting cutting-edge research with institutional transformation and social justice. Dr. Rios-Aguilar equips school leaders with advanced analytical tools to understand the socioeconomic contexts of their communities, design ecosystems of opportunity, and lead change grounded in students' cultural strengths.
Lucrecia Santibañez, Ph.D.
Program faculty · UCLA
Dr. Santibañez holds the Chair in Civil Rights and Education and directs the Center for the Transformation of Schools at UCLA. She earned her Ph.D. in Education, with a specialization in Economics, from Stanford University. She has served as a Technical Advisor to Mexico's National Institute for Educational Evaluation (INEE) and as an OECD expert, building a high-impact record in the economics of education, teacher policy, and support for vulnerable populations.
Her contribution to the program lies in her technical rigor in analyzing and designing education policy grounded in empirical evidence. Dr. Santibañez has trained public school principals in resource optimization, the strategic management of teaching talent, and evidence-informed decision-making to narrow learning gaps and ensure equitable education in their schools.
Stephanie Drynan
Program faculty
Ms. Drynan brings sixteen years of experience leading international schools across Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, including her recent role as Director of the American School in Chiapas, Mexico. Her institutional leadership experience is complemented by advanced training at Emory University as a facilitator in Cognitively-Based Compassion Training (CBCT) and Social, Emotional and Ethical (SEE) Learning.
Her presence in the program enriches participating principals by integrating school administration with socio-emotional wellbeing and compassion-based pedagogy. Ms. Drynan transfers key competencies for modernizing digital infrastructure through a data-informed approach, strengthening multilingual programs, and building more humane, inclusive, and resilient school communities.
Brenda Escobar Pérez
Program faculty
Ms. Escobar Pérez holds a Bachelor's and a Master's degree in Psychology from UNAM, complemented by a distinguished record in educational research, early childhood care, and engagement with teachers and families. As a certified SEE Learning facilitator through Emory University, she actively collaborates with institutions such as Proyecto Educativo SC and Educación para Mente y Corazón A.C.
Her participation in the program contributes essential practical and theoretical tools in educational psychology and social-emotional and ethical learning. Her experience enables her to guide school leaders in designing safe environments, equipping them with concrete competencies to implement mindfulness-based interventions and to provide holistic support for the development of their school communities.
Myriam A. Martínez Pérez Merodio
Program faculty
Ms. Martínez Pérez Merodio brings more than fifteen years of combined experience in education and mental health, supported by master's degrees in Education and in Ericksonian Psychotherapy, as well as international certifications as a CBCT instructor and SEE Learning facilitator. As a consultant with Emory University's Compassion Center, she designs curricular resources and co-facilitates trainings for educators in Mexico, Colombia, and the United States. She is co-author of SEE Learning Play, an innovative extension of the SEE Learning model designed to foster social-emotional skills among early-childhood teachers and students.
Her contribution to the program lies in her capacity to translate social-emotional research frameworks into practical, classroom-ready instructional strategies. Her clinical perspective and experience in teacher professional development prepare principals to manage emotional wellbeing, apply trauma-informed practices, and effectively coordinate multidisciplinary teams.
Dr. Bernardo H. Naranjo Piñera
Program faculty
Dr. Naranjo Piñera brings more than three decades of senior-level experience in the education sector as a researcher, public official, and consultant, holding a Ph.D. in Education Policy from Stanford University and a Master's degree in Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley. His leadership has driven strategies that have helped several Mexican states improve academic outcomes for students and teachers, work that has been documented by UNESCO, the OECD, and the World Bank. He has also served as an Advisor to the Governing Board of Mexico's National Institute for Educational Evaluation (INEE) and as a member of the OECD's PISA Governing Board.
His presence in the program offers principals a strategic, system-level perspective on public policy and educational evaluation. Dr. Naranjo Piñera prepares school leaders to manage institutional change with technical rigor, strengthen evidence-based decision-making, and align school management with national quality goals.
Who mentors the principals
Program mentors
LIDER's mentors are educators with extensive principal-level experience in Mexico's public education system. Their role is to support participants, through individual or small-group sessions, throughout the entire program.
Adriana Andrade Estrada
Mentor · individual and small-group coaching
With thirty-seven years of experience as a teacher, principal, supervisor, and trainer of early-childhood education personnel, Dr. Andrade Estrada has built a comprehensive perspective that combines classroom sensitivity with technical leadership from the supervisory level. Holding a Ph.D. in Education with a specialization in Pedagogy, she worked with Mexico's federal Secretariat of Public Education to relaunch the School Technical Councils and served as a national trainer for preschool supervisors in 2013 — experience that established her as a leading voice in the pedagogical coaching of school leaders.
Her collaboration with UNICEF and her work sustaining educational communities in the aftermath of earthquakes reveal a quality rarely found among trainers: the ability to support other leaders precisely when conditions are most adverse. For LIDER, this represents more than a distinguished career — it embodies the conviction that school transformation happens when principals feel genuinely supported, not merely trained.
Leticia Benítez Gallardo
Mentor · individual and small-group coaching
A graduate of the Escuela Normal de Ecatepec with more than thirty years in early-childhood education in Polotitlán, State of Mexico — from the classroom to the assistant principalship — and having reached Level D in the Carrera Magisterial, the program's highest tier, Professor Benítez Gallardo combines a solid normalista foundation with exceptional training: she received direct instruction from Dr. Irma Fuenlabrada, one of Mexico's most influential authorities on mathematics didactics, and has applied that methodology for over a decade.
Yet her most significant merit lies not in any title or certification, but in what her own educational community attests: teachers who worked with her continue to describe her as someone who transformed the way they understand teaching practice. It is precisely this kind of close, pedagogically grounded leadership — capable of generating collective reflection rather than mere compliance — that LIDER seeks to identify, cultivate, and multiply.
Norberto Cervantes Contreras
Mentor · individual and small-group coaching
Holding a Ph.D. in Pedagogy from UPAEP, Dr. Cervantes Contreras is among the few educators with measurable, verifiable results in large-scale educational assessment: as Director General of CECyTE Puebla (2013–2016), he positioned the institution as the top-performing school of its kind nationally on the PLANEA exam despite its students' socioeconomic profile, and as General Academic Coordinator of the Strategic Council for Compulsory Education (CEEO), he helped plan and implement the strategy that took Puebla to first place nationally on the PLANEA exam in lower and upper secondary education between 2015 and 2019.
His distinction as an educator lies in his ability to transform entire school systems, even in contexts of socioeconomic disadvantage, as demonstrated by his leadership at CECyTE Puebla. His experience as an advisor across multiple states rounds out a career that combines technical rigor, strategic vision, and a deep commitment to teacher development and school improvement.
Jesús Manuel de la Garza Long
Mentor · individual and small-group coaching
Professor de la Garza Long's career spans every level of teacher education: elementary school teacher, holder of a Bachelor's degree in Natural Sciences, a Master's in Pedagogy, and a specialization in Education Policy and Management, with classroom experience in elementary, secondary, normal, and graduate education. As Undersecretary of Higher Education for Coahuila, he drove the creation of six Technological and Polytechnic Universities, the Múzquiz Institute of Technology, and the Monclova Normal School — tangible evidence of his ability to translate policy decisions into concrete educational infrastructure.
His distinguishing merit is having retained a pedagogical outlook even from the highest levels of public management and policy, a quality he continues to demonstrate today as Technical Secretary of the National Commission for Teacher Admission, Promotion, and Incentives. For LIDER, he contributes a systems-level perspective that few faculty possess: an understanding of how a decision made at the undersecretary's office translates — or fails to translate — into the daily life of a school.
Amabilia Monjarás
Mentor · individual and small-group coaching
With eighteen years of experience in Toluca, Professor Monjarás has worked at both ends of the education system: she trained teachers from the ground up as an external advisor to the Toluca Teachers' Center (2010–2019) while simultaneously helping define national standards for the profession as a member of the committees that designed entrance and continuing-service examinations for teachers (2014–2019). As a Primary Education Supervisor for the past decade, she has led, together with her Zone Technical Council, concrete literacy improvement projects recognized in 2025 with SIPINNA's "Ally of Childhood" award.
This dual perspective — training teachers through everyday practice while also helping shape national assessment criteria — is exactly the kind of outlook LIDER needs to bridge education policy and real-world school management. Her career demonstrates that these two dimensions are not mutually exclusive, but rather enrich one another when held by the same person.
Anel Guadalupe Montero Díaz
Mentor · individual and small-group coaching
Professor Anel Montero Díaz has built an exceptional educational career: in 2026, she marked thirty years of service, having progressed consecutively through every level of the school structure — teacher in a one-room rural school, classroom teacher, principal, pedagogical-technical advisor, school supervisor, and sector chief. As Sector Chief since 2017 — a position she earned, like her earlier promotion to supervisor, through competitive examination, and one held by only four women among Veracruz's thirty federalized primary-education sectors — she currently coordinates ten school zones across three municipalities in the Xalapa region.
Her work as a teacher trainer is especially notable. During her tenure as a school supervisor in the Papaloapan Basin, she supported more than 500 qualified professionals who lacked formal teaching positions, helping them prepare for and pass the entrance examination, and later placing them in highly marginalized and insecure communities where almost no one else was willing to work.
Martha Ramírez Morales
Mentor · individual and small-group coaching
Over thirty-eight years in Mexico's federal public education system, Dr. Ramírez Morales has worked through every level of the system: she began as a multigrade teacher in a rural community, then served thirteen years as a classroom teacher, five years as a principal, twelve years as a supervisor, and for the past eight years as Sector Chief in Region VII of Guanajuato (Moroleón, Uriangato, and Yuriria). Few professional profiles offer such a complete, bottom-up view of how an educational decision is experienced at every link of the system.
Her distinguishing merit is having translated this breadth of experience into an operating conviction: she recognizes that her own effectiveness as sector chief depends on the coordinated performance of supervisors and principals, and she therefore actively fosters collaborative learning communities rather than managing through hierarchical authority alone. This understanding — that educational leadership is exercised through networks rather than in isolation — is a principle LIDER seeks to instill in every principal it trains.
Roberto Eduardo Sánchez García
Mentor · individual and small-group coaching
With a career spanning from the rural elementary classroom to graduate-level teaching, Professor Sánchez García represents a rare kind of merit: having taught at nearly every level of the Mexican education system. A certified normalista teacher holding two master's degrees — in Educational Research (IBERO Golfo) and in Education (ULSA) — he has held faculty positions at the Escuela Normal Superior de Tlaxcala and the Escuela Normal Federalizada de Puebla, and taught at the Universidad Iberoamericana Puebla and the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional, in addition to his experience in upper-secondary and secondary education and as a rural elementary school teacher.
As the official responsible for general secondary schools in the State of Puebla, he oversaw the state's rise to first place nationally on the PLANEA exam, a result that held through the exam's final administration in 2019. Now retired, he continues to lead training and outreach activities aimed at sharing his experience and passion for public education.
Rocío Vera Azuara
Mentor · individual and small-group coaching
Her hybrid background — a Certified Public Accountant and Auditor before entering the teaching profession, with a Bachelor's degree in Pedagogy, a specialization in Educational Psychology, and a Master's in Education — translates into a school management style marked by discipline and organization. She spent thirteen years as a Telesecundaria teacher (including periods serving as acting principal), seven years as a Pedagogical-Technical Advisor, and five years as Sector Chief, earning top statewide rankings on both the pedagogical-advisor and school-supervisor certification exams — evidence of a career built on demonstrated merit rather than seniority alone.
Today, as Supervisor of Telesecundaria schools in Coahuila, she transforms School Technical Councils into genuine spaces for teacher training and reflection, and actively works to relieve the principals she supports of administrative burdens so that they can focus on improving student learning. This priority — freeing principals from operational demands to restore their pedagogical time — aligns directly with what LIDER seeks to instill in every school.
Curriculum
Program structure
What a school principal can truly achieve · Information and artificial intelligence
The starting point: the potential of school leadership and the digital tools that amplify it.
Emotional wellbeing and school climate
Social-emotional conditions that allow teachers and students to teach and learn well.
Inclusive instructional leadership
How principals can directly shape what happens in the classroom, with an equity lens.
Strategic management
Managing resources, time, and school processes in service of learning — not the other way around.
Family and community engagement
Building partnerships that expand the resources available to the school and strengthen its ties to the community.
School improvement project
Designing and launching a real, institution-specific improvement initiative.
2026 Pilot: Coahuila and the State of Mexico
LIDER is launching its pilot phase with public school principals in the states of Coahuila and Mexico, with direct on-site coaching throughout the September–December 2026 cycle. The results of this initial phase will guide the program's expansion to other states across the country.
For more information about the program, please write to us at contacto@proyectoeducativo.org