This story appeared in the 2025 edition of Full Circle magazine, which you can access here.
When Aleia Carr McDaniel '96 talks about Castilleja, her eyes light up. The school equipped her with the tools to become an accomplished educator and a community activist. For twenty-five years, Aleia has been instructing and leading educators from Chicago to Dallas to Newark, empowering students and teachers when they need it most.
“The teachers really saw me in ways that I didn’t see myself,” says Aleia as she looks back at Castilleja's faculty and staff, who helped her feel like she belonged. The adults in her life, from the former Director of Admissions Jill LeeHA to Spanish teacher Flaurie S. ImbermanHA to the head of the theatre program Bear CapronHA, supported and encouraged her to participate in the many activities the school offered. Mr. Capron convinced her to audition for a theatre production. “No, you are going to be in the musical!” he said when she tried to get out of it, unsure of herself. And Doña Flaurie served as her advisor, coaching her to be fearless and working through adversity.
Aleia thrived at Castilleja, even though the Circle did not always feel like home to her. “At times, Castilleja was a mixed bag for me. It was really difficult in many ways,” says Aleia, who, along with a number of other classmates, commuted from East Palo Alto. “We had very few teachers of color. And I was going through so much personally—there was family addiction and poverty backgrounds for a lot of us. There was no space to acknowledge that and to feel psychologically safe,” she says. “I was very thankful for the administrators and teachers who may not have had the language themselves, but were intentional that we felt seen.”
“One of the coping mechanisms for me was to be busy,” explains Aleia. “Those things helped me feel empowered at a time when I felt out of control in other ways in my life. It catalyzed so much of who I was. I learned to have courage and confidence.”
She embraced every leadership and student government opportunity that she could. She started the African American Student Union (now Black Student Union) and served as its president. She was the founding member of Rainbow Alliance, the gay-straight student alliance. She was the class Vice President and also the Student Body Vice President. She spent her summers tutoring girls in the Peninsula Bridge program and working as a counselor at Casti Camp. She was even a student teacher for a freshman health class on campus.
She carried that confidence with her beyond the Circle, sitting in her Engineering Calculus class as a college student at Barnard, where none of the young women raised their hands. No one except for Aleia, that is. “It was so bizarre to me. I saw the power of having this strong foundation. Who else was I going to be except for a Castilleja woman?!” she exclaims.
After college, Aleia took a detour to teach before continuing her studies later in Educational Policy and Social Analysis. She spearheaded an educational program for girls in East Palo Alto and then served as a Teach for America Corps fellow. And there was no going back.
“I fell in love with teaching,” says Aleia. “The teaching bug bit me!”
Since then, Aleia has taught Middle School History and High School English nationwide. She is now Managing Director of Uplift Education, a nonprofit public charter school network in North Texas, where she oversees five schools.
“I started this work because I wanted to ensure that we had the best teachers in the classrooms. We have to have leaders in order to develop and sustain schools. Having a seat at the table is really powerful and it’s a responsibility I don’t take lightly. Having a voice in the decisions and the direction we get to go truly is revolutionary” she says. There are many issues schools are grappling with, from COVID-related learning loss and trauma, shrinking budgets, and political changes, she adds.
Over the years, Aleia has maintained close friendships with former classmates and last year, she joined the Castilleja Alumnae Board, helping steer alum engagement and participate in the life and the future of the school.
“One thing that has always been near and dear to my heart is Castilleja doesn’t always get it right, but we’re always trying,” says Aleia. “The school has always been willing to be introspective around what we are getting right, and what we have to face and reconsider and adjust.”
Looking back at her career, she says it was her community of East Palo Alto and Castilleja that ignited her passion to serve. “It didn’t come out from the ether,” says Aleia. “It really started because of work that I had done as a student leader. It started with Castilleja."
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