Her Story
About Nakia
Nakia Howell has served in education since 2008 and is currently a principal. She began her career working in foster care and a non-profit organization before earning her master's degree in speech-language pathology from Cornell University. She then became a speech teacher for the New York City Department of Education, where she was tapped to serve as special education liaison and later encouraged to pursue an administrative degree. Nakia advanced to assistant principal and was promoted to principal during the pandemic, a role she has held for five years. In her current position, she greets students and families, visits classrooms daily to support teachers, meets with families, and works to meet the needs of a student body that is 44 percent English language learners. Under her leadership, the school achieved a 25 percent increase in New York State math test scores and a 15 percent increase in English language arts scores from the 2023-24 to 2024-25 school years. Nakia is a member of the CSA and its Black Caucus, the Association of Black Educators of New York, and the National Association of Elementary School Principals. She has been honored by state senators in her district and by the Association of Black Educators of New York. Outside of her professional work, she volunteers with the Church of God at local, state, and national levels, mentors youth, and participates in alumni activities with the Cornell Black Alumni Association and Berkshire School in Sheffield, Massachusetts, where she attended high school. Nakia attributes her success to her faith and the support of her mentors, family, and ancestors, and she emphasizes perseverance, faith, and family as core values. She advises aspiring educators to be the kind of professional they would have wanted to encounter and to do work they love in order to create lasting impact.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Nakia
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success first to my faith. I also attribute it to the shoulders that I stand on. I know that I did not get to the position I am in on my own. I stand on wonderful shoulders of my mentors, of my family, of my ancestors that have empowered me in my journey. And so I know that I am not alone, and just like I'm not alone, it's my job to empower others to be where I am.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice that I've ever received is to ensure that you're doing what you love so that you can have maximum impact. If you don't love what you're doing, then you're not going to want to be impactful. And at the end of the day, we want to ensure that whatever we do leaves a lasting footprint, so that when you are long gone, someone else will still say your name and remember what you've done to impart in their life.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
What I would say to young women that are looking to be an educational administrator or even just in education: Be the educator you would have wanted to be around and would have wanted to interact with. You want to make sure that as a teacher you would want to be the one you would have wanted to be a student in your class. As a principal you would want to learn from and be under the leadership of yourself if you were a teacher, so that you can put yourself in the shoes of those that you work with and those that you serve. We always have to not only lead but we also have to learn.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Some of the biggest challenges in the field right now are finances. There are so many wonderful things that we would love to do for our students and for our community, but sometimes the dollars and cents in a budget does not add up to everything that you would want to do. But it's about being creative to ensure that you have max impact on minimal budget.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Perseverance is definitely one of my core values. As is faith and family. It's important to realize that things are not always going to go well but you have to find the good in even the challenges so that you can make good happen.
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