Julianna Parra is the principal of Alpha José Hernández, one of three TK-8 schools within Alpha Public Schools serving students and families in East San Jose. Parra’s personal experience of navigating the education system as the child of Colombian immigrants and learner of English as a second language drives her work towards an educational system that provides equitable support for all students and sees multilingualism as a strength instead of a barrier. She believes that one of the most important markers of success is access to making well informed choices and that it is our responsibility to ensure all students and families have access to the skills, tools and resources to do this for themselves.
Prior to her current role, Parra’s interest in education started with developmental and psycholinguistics studies at Boston University where she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. Shortly after graduating she began her teaching career in Houston, TX via Teach for America working as a Bilingual elementary teacher before moving to San Jose, CA to work as a middle school humanities teacher for a couple of years. During this time, she earned her Master of Science in Education with a focus in Elementary Studies from the Johns Hopkins University and began to look into more specialized opportunities to further her impact.
She joined the AJH team as a consultant for the English Language Development (ELD) program in 2019 before transitioning into ELD Specialist supporting TK-8 in strengthening intentional support of English Language Learners. Her work in this role laid the foundation for improved results for all identified English language learners and prepared her for principalship with the vision of serving all learners.
When she is not working, she enjoys spending time outdoors, seeing live music and sports (Go Pats!) and traveling to new places.
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