Meet the TxCEE Team

TxCEE staff has experience in a number of roles, including teacher and district administrative leadership positions as well as experience at the state and regional level. The combined experience of the TxCEE team provides expertise in building teacher and leader capacity along with supporting school reform. All team members are committed to providing differentiated support and learning opportunities that meet the needs of classroom teachers, teacher leaders, and administrators.

TxCEE Leadership Team

Anita Givens
Chief TxCEE Officer

Anita Givens was recently promoted to the position of Chief TxCEE Officer. She provides leadership and direction for all TxCEE initiatives and the Teacher and School Leader (TSL) grant to strengthen educator quality and positively impact student achievement. Previously, Ms. Givens served as the Director of Program Support at TxCEE. She managed daily operations of the Program Support Unit, including the development and use of data systems to support human capital management, performance-based compensation processes, communications, and online learning. Before joining TxCEE, Givens spent 22 years at the Texas Education Agency where she served in the roles of Associate Commissioner for Standards and Programs and Deputy Associate Commissioner for Standards and Alignment. Givens has taught Kindergarten and 2nd grade and educational technology classes from elementary through graduate school. She received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Early Childhood Education from Houston Baptist University and a Master of Science Degree in Educational Management from the University of Houston-Clear Lake.

Joann Taylor
Assistant Chief TxCEE Officer

Joann Taylor serves as the Assistant Chief TxCEE Officer. She began at TxCEE as the Human Resource Strategies Coordinator focusing on supporting districts as they build Human Capital Management Systems. Before joining TxCEE, Joann served as the Director of Educator Effectiveness for the Austin Independent School District (AISD) where she managed Professional Pathways for Teachers, a Human Capital System that blended appraisal, compensation, leadership pathways, and professional development to focus resources on building the capacity of teachers through supports and rewards. Prior to serving as Director, Joann worked in several roles in the Office of Educator Quality building the AISD REACH program and working with student learning objectives. Before joining Educator Quality, Joann was a high school English teacher for ten years. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor’s Degree in English and earned a Master’s Degree in Educational Leadership from Concordia University.

Daryl Michel, Ph.D.
Director of School Improvement

Dr. Daryl Michel is the Director of School Improvement at TxCEE. He oversees the development of district-level school improvement initiatives to improve human capital and student achievement in partner school districts. Prior to joining the TxCEE team, Dr. Michel worked at The University of Texas at Austin Institute for Public School Initiatives as the assistant director and then director of academic foundations. He was an adjunct professor at Concordia University and a project manager and reading technical assistance specialist at The University of Texas System. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education from the University of Northern Iowa, a Master of Science in Educational Administration from Texas A&M University-Kingsville, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Education: School Improvement from Texas State University.

Jessica Sievert Navarro
Director of Partnerships

Jessica Sievert Navarro serves as the Director of Partnerships at TxCEE. She coordinates services with TxCEE partners, including partnership development and strategic planning, and assists with report writing, MOU and contract development. Prior to joining TxCEE, she served as the State Director for Communities In Schools and as a Program Evaluation Project Manager at the Texas Education Agency. Those roles provided her opportunities to manage statewide initiatives, develop standards and policies, and bring high-quality training and support to the highest need schools. Mrs. Navarro earned her Bachelor’s degree in International Studies and Master’s degree in Public Administration from Texas State University.

Shana Shaw, Ph.D.
Research and Evaluation Coordinator

As Research and Evaluation Manager at TxCEE, Dr. Shana Shaw develops and oversees TxCEE’s research goals, priorities, and activities. Shaw conducts evaluations of TxCEE projects and assists staff with formative analysis of data as needed to guide the work of the projects. Before joining TxCEE, Shaw served as a Senior Research Specialist at the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, where she managed several large-scale researcher-practitioner partnership grants. She also previously worked at two Austin-based research organizations—Gibson Consulting Group and SEDL—where much of her work focused on educator effectiveness. At SEDL, she also led technical assistance on educator evaluation systems for state education agencies. After completing her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, Shaw was a Data Fellow with Harvard’s Strategic Data Project in the Fort Worth Independent School District (FWISD). In this role, she supported empirical examinations of the district’s human capital management policies and evaluated the FWISD’s DATE and TIF grants. In addition to her Ph.D., she holds an M.A. in Program Evaluation from The University of Texas at Austin and a B.A. in Psychology from Stephen. F. Austin State University.

Priscilla Flores
Communications Manager

Priscilla Gonzalez Flores manages TxCEE’s communication strategy and assists districts with the development and implementation of stakeholder processes. Before joining TxCEE, Flores served as Senior Policy Advisor in the Division of and Educator Leadership and Quality at the Texas Education Agency. In this role, she was responsible for providing oversight of high priority projects including the development of educator and student policy issues related to educator recruitment, educator preparation, professional development, educator evaluation systems, student discipline, and overall program quality. Flores began her twenty year career in education as a secondary ELA teacher, high school Assistant Principal, and state GEAR UP Director. Flores holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and a Master of Science in Education Administration from Texas A&M University-Kingsville.