Philonda Johnson is a teacher and coach in her heart. Philonda grew up in San Antonio, Texas and New York City. At a young age, she always thought that she would be a lawyer and fight for justice. Joining the 2005 Houston Teacher for America corps as a Pre-Kindergarten teacher changed her career trajectory. In 2007, KIPP DC as a founding Pre-Kindergarten teacher, she fell in love with teaching, serving and began to (re)imagine what it meant to fight for educational justice. For 8 years, she served as the Founding Principal at KIPP Discover Academy. In 2017, Philonda transitioned to KIPP Northern California, where she serves as a Managing Director of Schools and has the honor of serving school leaders in Oakland, San Francisco and Redwood City. For the past seven years, she has served as a Leadership Coach and specifically loves coaching Black women school leaders. Philonda Johnson is the CEO of Philonda Johnson Consulting, a boutique leadership coaching and development firm for aspiring and current Black Women school and district leaders. She continues to explore and reinforce her commitment to Black Women and Black Girls through her research as a second year doctoral student at San Francisco State University. Currently, her dissertation study is on the experience of Black Women Principals as they implement an Anti-Racist Black Langauge Pedagogy on behalf of Black Girls in their schools. When Philonda is not supporting leaders and doing grad school homework, you can find her enjoying her new passion of reading and journaling poetry from amazing Black female poets.