Stephanie Downey Toledo

Superintendent

Central Falls Schools District

Dr. Stephanie Downey Toledo is the superintendent of the Central Falls School District, an urban district in Rhode Island. While her current district is one of the nation’s smallest urban districts, her career began in our nation’s two largest. She started as a classroom teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District for bilingual students with disabilities and then served similar populations for nearly a decade in the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE). In NYC she spanned education roles from special education teacher to speech language pathologist and left as Deputy CEO for Special Education for the NYCDOE when she headed to Harvard to earn her Doctorate of Education Leadership. Dr. Downey Toledo is passionate about leading learning for PK-12 students as well as adult learners. She has taught as an appointed member of the faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Teachers College at Columbia University on the topic of special education, including multilingual students with disabilities. Dr. Downey Toledo is also a champion for equity in education and has worked to increase diversity in education leadership. She is the co-founder of SponsHER, an organization which seeks to close the gender gap in education leadership. With SponsHER she has led training on implicit bias, published an op-ed in The Huffington Post and attended the White House Summit on The United State of Women as a nominated change maker.