Getting to Know Ed.L.D. Marshal Lucia Moritz

In her three years at HGSE, Lucia Moritz, Ed.L.D.’14, can see how much she’s changed.

“The past few years in Ed.L.D. have been ones of a lot of growth,” Moritz says. “When I think of where I was when I entered the program to where I am now, it took the support of the community to get here. I feel very blessed to have had that.”

Selected as a commencement marshal by her cohort, Moritz admits she couldn’t have made it without them. In fact she credits them, along with Harvard Kennedy School Lecturer and HGSE faculty member Marshall Ganz, with helping her find a voice.

“When I first came to Harvard, I felt like I was a mistake,” she says. “I thought I wasn’t supposed to be here, and I silenced myself. It took me a few months to realize why I was here and that I have a voice. People in this program immediately supported me and it became a safe, supportive place.”

Born on the streets of Los Angeles to a homeless mother, and eventually taken under Child Protective Services and foster care, Moritz was adopted by age four. Growing up in low-income communities in some of the worst schools of Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area, she became used to not sharing her voice. Most teachers didn’t even consider college an option for her.

“I didn’t share my story with a lot of people, it was something that I kept private but it became part of the reason I work in education,” Moritz says.

It was intervention by a 10th-grade science teacher, who enrolled her in honor’s courses, and a pastor, who helped her fill out college applications and financial aid forms, that arguably transformed her future. Those interventions, as well as an opportunity to tutor as a teenager, made a future in education seem possible. “I saw education as the place to make the most impact,” she says.

But once she began working as a middle school teacher in Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), she started to see the larger problems that existed in education at the system level, some of which affected her ability to be the best teacher. So, she made the decision to help start a charter school called Making Waves Academy in the San Francisco Bay area, but even after four years, she didn’t feel she was having the broad impact she could and decided to go back to school herself.

She was lured to the Ed School by the Ed.L.D. curriculum focusing on business, policy, and education. But once she arrived on campus, she felt unsure of herself. “All of those insecurities from childhood came up again,” she admits.

By the second day of the Ed.L.D. Program, Ganz called on her to talk about why she entered the program. “I’d never spoken about the experiences I’d had,” she says. “In that moment, I realized my voice was important. The program helped me see what my strengths were and how to use my strengths as an advocate.”

When it came time to choose her residency, Moritz returned to Los Angeles where, for the past year, she worked for LAUSD’s Linked Learning Initiative, a district-wide strategy designed to transform high schools through integrating rigorous academics with real-world learning opportunities. In particular, she helped create a process for selecting, recruiting, and bringing 12 teams together to create additional pathways for students within eight schools. She focused directly on building leadership teams at various high schools in the city. The experience was a huge learning opportunity, she says.

“It was an interesting space to think creatively and try different models,” she says. “But I really learned how to build relationships with people.” To accomplish the latter, she spent many months meeting with everyone who had school buy-in, from superintendent to principals to teachers to organizations.

“There’s a lot of expertise in the system and we need to figure out how to leverage that expertise,” Moritz says. “When you are coming in as the ‘Harvard’ person, people can be turned off that. Harvard gets you in the door but it’s the work that’s going to keep you in.”

Work that Moritz has done well. Recently, she was offered an opportunity to continue in LAUSD, which is something she’s strongly considering.

As she prepares to graduate from HGSE, she sees the next step as only the beginning.

“I feel so excited to be done,” Moritz says. “I have a lot of tools, a different mindset, and the lens that the Ed.L.D. provided, but it’s just the beginning. It can be overwhelming because I want the perfect job where I can make the most impact, but this is just the beginning on my trajectory of growth as a leader in education.”