Born and raised on the island of Puerto Rico, Jania came to the United States to attend college. She received her Bachelor’s in Education from Oral Roberts University and her Master’s in Educational Leadership from Oklahoma State University. She was first hired as one of the founding teachers of Kendall-Whittier Elementary in Tulsa Public Schools (TPS), where she spent 14 years, the last 2 of those years as their assistant principal. She then became the principal of Henry Zarrow International Elementary School, a Tulsa Public Schools language immersion magnet program, for 4 years. Her passion for dual-language education and community engagement is clearly evident in her work and in the high bar that she sets both for herself and those she has led. She and her husband have been married since 1996 and they have 3 children: Sanjuana, Markos and Isabela. They have chosen to raise their children to be bilingual, bi-literate, and change agents in the poverty cycle. Since 1998, they have chosen to live in a neighborhood in need as they deeply believe that people of means need to move back into communities in need to help alleviate the poverty cycle in such communities.