The following bio is that of an event speaker or guest author. This person is not directly affiliated with the John Locke Foundation.

Dr. Olivia Oxendine has an extensive record in public education teaching reading, social studies, and English in three states; directing curricular programs at the central office level; serving as a school administrator in elementary and middle grades; and directing state-level programs in dropout prevention, the NC DARE program, school nursing, and school social work. In South Carolina and North Carolina, she has served on numerous committees established to improve K-12 writing instruction.

Dr. Oxendine holds degrees from UNC Pembroke, Appalachian State University, and UNC Greensboro. While working at the Department of Public Instruction in the late nineties, Dr. 0xendine completed two school reform institutes on the campuses of Stanford University and the Yale Child Study Center. Her leadership in and advocacy for school-family-community engagement in public schools earned her a special citation signed by the author. visionary, and child psychiatrist Dr. James P. Comer, Director of the School Development Program at the Yale Child Study Center.

Dr. Oxendine’s special research in school segregation from teachers’ perspectives has been presented to many audiences at the state and national levels, including oral historians at the National Museum of the American Indian-Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. Dr. Oxendine teaches school leadership courses at the University of North Carolina Pembroke.