Highlighting Women Making History: Dr. Nancy Bernardino

Written by Rachel Chewakin 

This blog highlights a recent conversation between Rachel Chewakin and Dr. Nancy Bernardino, an Executive Director in Dallas ISD and former PIC leader. 

This article features five key stories from our conversation. 
​Part 1: Impactful Experiences 
Part 2 : Mentorship & Building Relationships 
Part 3: Advice for Women and Aspiring Women Leaders
Part 4: The Opportunity to Expand Allyship for Women of Color
Part 5: Leading with Affirmations 

​Biography
Dr. Nancy Bernardino is the Executive Director of Dallas Independent School District’s Single Gender & Transformation Cluster. She holds an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership, an MLA and Dual BA from Southern Methodist University, and a M.Ed. in Educational Administration from Texas A&M Commerce. Nancy is a Trustee for the International Coalition of Girls Schools, the Former President of the Association of Hispanic School Administrators, and a Hispanic 100 Member. She was named Dallas ISD’s 2019-2020 Principal of the Year. Nancy is also a member of GSNETX's Board Development Committee.

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Part 1:  Impactful Experiences

Q: What experiences have shaped you as a leader or have been most impactful for you?
A: I grew up in Dallas, Texas but I was born in Mexico. My parents immigrated here when I was one. I grew up going to schools in Dallas ISD through the eighth grade. Then after eighth grade, I got an opportunity to go to The Hockaday School, an all girls private school here in Dallas. 

My experience at this school was the first time that I truly saw the difference in education equity and access in what was being given to me. I look back and think about having amazing teachers through my elementary and middle school years. But it was actually a middle school teacher who painted a picture for me about the importance of my education. I also remember throughout my high school years that it wasn’t a matter of not having great teachers, it was that I had access to more opportunities necessary. I ended up going to Southern Methodist University (SMU) to pursue a degree in  Corporate Communications & Public Affairs, and Spanish. 

At this point, the education profession was not a thought in my mind until I started working at SMU as a marketing coordinator and started sponsoring student organizations. I was a really active student at SMU but I didn't realize some of the challenges that my peers were facing until after I graduated when I started sponsoring student organizations. 

It was then I realized how many students that I was mentoring started off taking remedial courses when they arrived. These were classes that were not for credit, and you can imagine how an institution like SMU may impact financial means as well, so this wasn’t just about the money but about empowering them to be on the same level as their peers who had access to resources. 

I then decided I wanted to enter education, so I applied to the Dallas ISD alternative certification program and started my career as a second grade bilingual teacher in East Dallas at George W. Truett Elementary. 

When I was there, I was fortunate enough to work for a principal who really pushed me right out of the gate. They told me, “I know you are a first year teacher, but I really believe you should consider administration and working on your master's in education administration.”

And so, with his mentorship and advice, I did. I enrolled in a program at A&M Commerce, and took a leadership position at E.D. Walker Middle School under the leadership of my former principal. 

From there, I joined Dan D. Rogers Elementary and had the opportunity to become an academic coordinator. I had an incredible principal leading this campus as well, and it was great to really work side-by-side with her. At the time, she didn’t have an assistant principal, so I had the opportunity to gain some of that experience without being officially in the role. I soon enrolled and completed my Masters in Education Administration, and had the chance to go back to my home middle school, J.L. Long Middle School as an associate principal. 

In this role, I worked under the leadership of Ms. Danielle Petters. I feel fortunate now that my first experience in administration was with her. She is a true coach, and was the type of leader that didn’t give me all of the answers. She was the type of leader that masterfully asked questions to help me reflect on my own practices. 

I later became the principal of John Quincy Adams in Pleasant Grove, and was there for four years before I decided and had the opportunity to apply and create my own school. This is where Solar Preparatory School for the Girls was really born. 

Solar Girls was really based on the work we had been doing in Pleasant Grove. We made a lot of growth on that campus and wanted to do something different in education. So my experience at Hockaday, coupled with my love for Dallas, really is what drove me to put together a team and pitch this new school concept. Our vision was for this school to be an opportunity for girls within Dallas ISD to come together and receive a high-quality experience without necessarily needing a scholarship to get in. I was fortunate to have Dallas ISD offer me the opportunity to create this campus, along with a phenomenal group of founding teachers and staff. 
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I’m really proud of this incredibly successful school. The current Principal,  Olivia Santos, is doing a great job of elevating instruction and culture, while continuing the vision we originally had for the school.

Part 2: Mentorship & Building Relationships

Q: You shared the power of mentorship in some of your relationships. Can you share with us what was true in those relationships that made them so impactful? How did you foster trust with one another?

A: When I reflect on this, I think about the level of trust leaders and teachers have extended to me. I think that their belief in me was not necessarily things I saw in myself.  It really is important to build connections with teachers to form positive relationships, even beyond time in the classroom. 

There were several leaders who I worked for that I had trusting relationships with. First and foremost, they took a leap of faith in me and I think they showed trust in me to execute what we needed for our school and this came with a lot of vulnerability on their part. This allowed me to take risks and to create space for me to fail, and come back and experience a new way of thinking based on that failure. 

I remember conversations with Ms. Petters specifically during a time when I just received a call from a parent about their interaction with me. Her approach as my coach was helping me think through what I learned from that experience, what I was going to do differently next time, and how I was going to reflect on this experience? This helped me learn right away from my mistakes and provided me with encouragement to not be so hard on myself.

Even when I got my first principal role, there was also a lot of trust extended by my Executive Director at the time on the vision that I had for the school and where I wanted to take it. His mentorship and coaching was about what resources he could share with me and he taught me that as a principal, I have to advocate for my campus, specifically around the resources I needed or wanted to get for what my students needed. This meant having a nice fence around the school or to have a garden in the courtyard, to make the campus more beautiful as you drove by and for students to access hands-on learning. 

As a mentor it was about the importance of also networking and creating connections as a principal. This was not just about leading my school but also about having strong external relationships that would provide resources for my school based on our needs.

Part 3: Advice for Women and Aspiring Women Leaders

Q: What advice would you share with other women reading this article or women who are in leadership or aspire to be in leadership?

A: One thing I have consistently shared with my students when I was at Solar Prep for Girls was the concept of uplifting one another. I think every role that I have gone into, I have found what I now call the wolf pack. Today, this is a group of colleagues that are reading this book together and who offer a space to lean on each other. We set aside time every week to connect and debrief what’s going on with one another. We are truly thought partners in this work. 

In education, there isn’t always a clear space created for you everywhere that fosters these types of relationships. Some organizations, like PIC, are really great at bringing people together with other individuals. The PIC program brought us together and created a wolf pack of support with other principals. 

I would encourage young girls and women, wherever they're at, whether it's in college or in the workforce, to find and identify their wolf pack right away. This really started for me back when I was at SMU because I was able to find connection in a Latina sorority that I was a part of. This connection helped me get through my time at SMU. Ever since then, I think to myself every role that I take on, if the wolf pack mentality is not naturally there, then I’ll somehow find a way to create it. 
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I recommend finding those people who help push you and support you along the way. And to get rid of those relationships with people that are judgmental or toxic. You have to pay attention to who you surround yourself with, and to surround yourself with people that will uplift and push you in the right ways.

Part 4: The Opportunity to Expand Allyship for Women of Color

Q: Can you share more about how we, as a community, can better support women? And how can we continue to impact the allyship for women’s advancement while amplifying voices of women of color?  

A: One of the other great things I enjoyed about my time in PIC is the focus on well-being and taking care of the individual. Taking care of the individual tends to be harder to publicly exhibit for women and specifically for women of color. We often feel that in whatever role we're in, that we have to always prove ourselves and prove we are worthy to be in that position.  I think sometimes we don't give ourselves as much grace, or we don't give ourselves the space to practice and to exercise well-being practices. 

It’s an important part of the PIC program, and by connecting with the school districts and sharing this, is what is needed for leaders to be able to focus on well-being. This is needed to support women in our work and pushes us also to do that for others. It almost gives us the permission to say it’s alright to pause and that it’s important for me to take 15 minutes to myself in the middle of the day. 

The more we can create a focus on well-being and make it a priority of the culture of education, and truly create a place where we are not constantly asking for permission or feeling like we have to prove ourselves because of the color of our skin or the fact that we’re female is really important.

Part 5: Leading with Affirmations

Q: Thank you for sharing that and I'm curious if there's anything else that comes to mind, for you that I might not have asked the right question about or any other details you feel like would be helpful for the readers to know about you.

A: One thing I’ll share is the importance of affirmations. As a boy mom, one of the things I always think about is affirming my sons. I just had a conversation with one of my boys about his confidence, and asked him, “How do you feel when you go into these projects?” 

And he shared that he doesn’t always feel confident, and by probing and supporting him to understand what might make him feel confident is one way of reminding me that things can be hard, but there is power in affirmations. 

For ourselves and specifically for our children at home, I think educators, a lot of the time, we pour so much into the kids that we serve that sometimes our own children suffer. Reminding ourselves to share the voices and the effort that we put into all the kids that we serve, we also need to do the same for ourselves and those at home.