Debra E. Lane

Dr. Debra Lane has been an educator for more than 30 years, as a teacher and administrator in the U.S. and abroad. She has led several schools as principal, including one of the world's leading international schools, Shanghai American School. She taught grades from pre-K through middle school, as well as ESOL, Literacy, and Gifted and Talented classes in Fairfax County Public Schools and in the Dominican Republic. She was Director of Talent Development at Alexandria City Public Schools. She holds a BS from Baylor University, master's degrees from Virginia Tech and George Mason University, and an Ed.D. from the University of Virginia. Her dissertation work on bullying prevention has led to her advising government agencies, associations, and school boards on effective bullying prevention strategies both locally and internationally. She has taught undergraduate and graduate classes at George Mason University and the University of Virginia. As part of her work with the National Staff Development Council she applied current research in adult learning to her work on staff development, focusing on professional learning communities. She presented at numerous international conferences, including Near East South Asia Association, Tri-State Educators, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and through her work with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, at the National Science Foundation. Currently she is working with the Virginia Department of Education in the Office of School Quality focusing on instruction and increasing teacher’s leadership and instructional roles across the state. Dr. Lane also participated in accreditation teams in China and Hong Kong with the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. She was nominated as Virginia Principal of the Year and won the Chesapeake Bay Foundation Educator of the Year Award in 2009. She has been an educational consultant at Lane Leadership Group,LLC for over ten years working in the U.S, Central and South America. Currently, she serves as a board member with NOVA Outside, GrandInvolve, Virginia Association for Environmental Education (VAEE), Fall for the Book Literacy Festival at George Mason University, and IDEA (Inclusive Development Education for Adolescences’).