With almost two decades as an education practitioner, Dr. Silindra McRay brings experience as an Educator, Administrator, and Program Manager, within Public, Private, and Higher Education settings. These experiences, combined with her Doctorate of Education, with a focus on Social Justice and Equity, further demonstrate the strides that she has made in the field and her desire to make lasting change for all learners.  

Dr. McRay’s professional career in the field of education began after obtaining a Bachelor of Arts in English with a minor in Spanish from Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia.  She started her career as Lead Administrator for Academic Regions I & IV with the Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) and concluded her journey with CMSD when she began consulting within a non-profit organization that she and her brother founded.  While consulting, she taught English Language Arts (ELA) at a private school, in Cleveland, Ohio. Consulting while teaching motivated Silindra to do more for our educational system, leading her to pursue graduate study.  Prior to obtaining her Doctorate of Education, Silindra earned her Masters of Education with a specialization in Organization Leadership and PreK-12 Principal’s Licensure from Cleveland State University. This graduate degree and past work experience created opportunities for her to grow as an educator, teaching students in varying educational spaces. A highlight of this journey was teaching middle school ELA at a charter school in Ohio, which sparked her interest and future dedication to equitably cultivating students' ability to achieve academic excellence inside and outside the classroom. This dedication to excellence quickly elevated Silindra to a building leadership position as Dean of Student Life and Management, then to K-8 building Principal the next year. 

However, her desire to broaden her knowledge of the education landscape led her to the great state of California, where she pursued a fellowship with Education Pioneers.  After being accepted in 2014, Silindra moved to California to work on a 10-week project with the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), where she helped the Office of School Quality Review create a tool to assess schools' academic and cultural strengths and weaknesses.  Following her fellowship, she received a full-time position as a Talent School Partner, with OUSD, utilizing her operations and instructional lens to support an entire network of administrators within the District and provide leadership around how to confront staff who were struggling.  Her work required her to understand effective teaching strategies and to document areas of growth with supporting evidence.  

After years of service with the Oakland Unified School District, Silindra accepted a position as Manager, Employee Relations Investigations, with San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) - a role that she served in for a year, prior to being becoming Director/Special Assistant to the Superintendent for the African American Achievement and Leadership Initiative (AAALI).  Currently, Dr, McRay serves as a Chief of Strategy for a Bay Area school district.   While working with the district, Dr. McRay's educator spirit and prowess was further nurtured through her service as an adjunct instructor. Specifically, Silindra has served as an Adjunct Professor at San Francisco State University (SFSU), where she has taught in the Departments of Elementary Education and Criminal Justice.  Additionally, she is the founder of EdStrategy Enacted, a boutique consulting firm that focuses on talent management; performance management; leadership development and policy development. All of the aforementioned examples and experiences created a foundation for Dr. McRay’s research which centers on mitigating the classroom effects of implicit bias on minority student achievement.Dr. McRay is proud to serve as the new CEO of Amara Leaders, continuing to create spaces that uplift and inspire African American women leaders across sectors.  She looks forward to creating new and exciting opportunities for African American women to unite in ways that build strong coalitions for one another for years to come.  As such, this will continue to be a place to realize, thus actualize our power in ways that advance our exceptional leadership.  Please sign-up to receive our newsletters and follow us on Instagram @AmaraLeaders to stay abreast of the latest updates.  In the meantime, tell an African American woman to tell an African American woman, and their “co-conspirators”, about Amara Leaders and reach out to amaraleadersgroup@gmail.com to discover ways to get involved!