Gwendolyn Battle-Lavert

Gwendolyn Battle Lavert, PhD, is an international literacy specialist. She has served as principal of Frances Slocum Elementary in Marion, Indiana, and as a leadership and literacy expert in the Middle East, where she led curricular improvement and professional development initiatives and aligned those efforts with the district’s progress as a professional learning community. Dr. Lavert has been an educator since 1974 and has experience as a teacher, district literacy specialist, and district administrator in a variety of school settings. The schools she has worked in range from a predominantly low-income school serving minorities to some of the most affluent and high-performing schools, including Highland Park Elementary School in Texarkana, Texas. She has been an assistant professor at the College of Education at Indiana Wesleyan University, where she taught foundations of early literacy and literacy in the content area. She also taught graduate courses in leadership and led several master’s cohort groups. Dr. Lavert is a member of the Indiana Administration Association and is the Indiana Department of Education lead for literacy. Her strong belief in developing highly effective schools that are responsive to students’ cultural learning and cognitive styles has resulted in marked improvement in various schools. She has presented throughout the United States on topics ranging from developing a culture of high expectations to implementing support systems for students who are struggling academically and behaviorally, and she has worked with educational leaders to make curricula more relevant to marginalized students. Dr. Lavert received a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and a master’s degree in literacy from Texas A&M University. Her doctorate in education leadership is from Indiana State University.  She is a noted-children’s Author (Papa Mark) and professional  development books for educators: Who Says I Can’t)- Closing the Reading Gap!). Her Newsletters and following on Social  Media are widely read and review as outstanding.