Alexis Christina Thomason joins the Creative City School community after serving in school and non-profit leadership roles in DC and NYC for over 16 years. She is passionate about bringing equity to education, building the capacity of teachers, supporting families as leaders, and ensuring that students have access to the highest quality education possible.
Fiercely passionate about living a life of service, strengthening families, and being a champion for children. Alexis most recently served as the Deputy Chief, Family and Community Programs for Martha’s Table, leading the organization's Family Engagement, Emotional Wellness, and Community Development programs. Before joining Martha’s Table, Alexis served as the Director of Education and Resident Engagement at A Wider Circle after serving for five years as the principal and Head of School of Storefront Academy Harlem, a PK-8thgrade independent school in NY and 8 years as a charter school Dean of Students. Alexis also served as an adjunct professor and has facilitated training sessions for countless teachers, student teachers, and staff during her career. She is passionate about developing family-centered programs and nourishing emerging leaders. A cornerstone of Alexis’ leadership style is her focus on relationships. She prioritizes getting to know the community one family at a time, believing every member of a child’s ecological system is critical to their success. She is also adept at strategically expanding service delivery to meet changing needs, developing and evaluating family-strengthening programs, cultivating a shared vision, and building a strong sense of staff accountability and positive morale. Alexis graduated from The City of New York University at Baruch College with an undergraduate degree in Business Management and received her M.S. Ed in Educational Psychology from NYU, specializing in the Psychology of Parenthood. Alexis is an avid meditator and a Certified Mindfulness Teacher. Her current focus is on bringing emotional wellness, mindfulness, and somatic healing programs to historically underrepresented communities. Understanding from her lived experience that by focusing on emotional health in holistic ways, using ancient wisdom and embodied practices we can begin to break the cycle of intergenerational and historical trauma. Alexis continues to raise the bar for student achievement and family engagement by creating joyful and family-centered school and non-profit cultures with high expectations for students, teachers, and staff alike. Living by the motto “ Our kids and families will not get this year back; we have to do better!”
principal
Traci Johnson Mathena joined Creative City as its Principal on July 20th, 2015. Prior to joining our school, she served as an assistant principal at Towson Law and Public Policy High School in Baltimore County (2009-2015). During her tenure, she supervised various academic departments as well as the school’s Student Support services, Special Education Department, Student Activities programs and the Testing Program. She also developed the Academic Commitment Creates Empowered Successful Students (ACCESS) Program, an afterschool academic intervention where teachers, peer tutors and university students worked with struggling learners.
Traci has been an urban educator for 20 years. She started as a teacher in 1994 after working as a metropolitan reporter for the Baltimore Sun for six years. In Baltimore City, she worked at her alma mater Western High School (Class of ‘88) and Canton Middle School. She was a teacher and Language Arts Department Chairman at Dumbarton Middle School in Baltimore County for eight years before joining the Towson High School administrative team. Her appointment to Creative City returns Traci to the Park Heights area where she was raised.
Since 1995, Traci has written curriculum for both Baltimore City and Baltimore County public school systems, mentored teachers, led professional development seminars about Differentiated Instruction, and taught graduate courses in education for Towson University and, most recently, the Johns Hopkins School of Education.
Traci is a National Board Certified Teacher of English Language Arts/Early Adolescence and earned her master’s degree in Leadership in Teaching from Notre Dame University of Maryland. She is the proud alumna of University of Maryland College Park and the even more proud parent of a current Terrapin, a Linguistics and Psychology major who will graduate in 2017.