Custodia-Lora, vice president of the Lawrence campus and of community relations for Northern Essex, is one of seven members of the newly organized Lawrence Alliance for Education, the partnership board that will oversee the city’s schools. For the last six years the schools were under the direction of Jeffrey C. Riley, who will depart in June to become the state’s education commissioner.
The Lawrence Alliance for Education carries the statutory authorities granted to a receiver by state law. The board will name a superintendent to manage the district on a day-to-day basis and report to the board. The board itself will report to the state’s commissioner of elementary and secondary education.
Custodia-Lora, a native of Puerto Rico, joined Northern Essex in 2003 teaching in the Natural Sciences Department for eight years. Her classes soon became destination classes for NECC students enrolling in nutrition, human biology, and anatomy & physiology. Later, her star continued to rise as she took on the role of coordinator of the Associate of Applied Science in Laboratory Science. That served as a springboard to the position as assistant dean of Foundational Studies and Liberal Arts & Sciences and today as vice president of the Lawrence campus and community relations. In her vice president role, she oversees K-12 partnerships at the college, working closely with the Lawrence Public Schools.
Before joining NECC, Custodia-Lora was a postdoctoral fellow at Tufts Medical School in Boston. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Universidad de Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, and a Ph.D in physiology-endocrinology from Boston University.
As an immigrant and educator, Custodia-Lora knows well the challenges of working with and educating a Spanish-speaking community.
"As Riley prepares to step down, the creation of this board means that the important work of school improvement will continue in Lawrence,'' said State Secretary of Education James Peyser.
