Kathleah Pagdilao, M.A.
DIRECTOR, LEARNING AND LEADERSHIP (she/her)
Kathleah Consul Pagdilao serves as the Director of Learning and Leadership at CCEJ, leads organizational learning and leadership development and supports training and facilitation in anti-oppression education and Restorative Justice at CCEJ. A former classroom teacher, Kathleah started as a CCEJ volunteer, joined as staff to create Conscious Classrooms, and served as the Director of Building Bridges for Youth for six years. She has been designing, coordinating, and facilitating critical dialogues on anti-oppression topics for over a decade as she believes in the power of building connections across differences to transform relationships and communities.
Kathleah’s interests and experiences span many fields from conducting research at a progressive K-8 school and co-authoring articles including “Transnational Children Orchestrating Competing Voices in Multimodal, Digital Autobiographies” (Teachers College Record) to coordinating an oral history project in rural Colorado. After growing up in six different cities around the world, Kathleah is grateful to call Southern California home and to learn and work alongside community-centered leaders, including her fellow graduates of both the Leadership Long Beach Institute and The Nonprofit Partnership’s Emerging Leaders Program.
Kathleah is wholeheartedly invested in community and brings a collaborative spirit to her work with schools, workplaces, and organizations. She is proud to be the daughter to immigrant parents who she attributes her deep love of learning to as they taught her the value of education. Kathleah is grateful to work at CCEJ where she is able to bridge her love of education with social justice as well as find deep meaning in helping young people and adults feel seen, heard, and valued. As a loyal and introverted Aquarius, Kathleah is a compassionate facilitator and Restorative Justice practitioner who enjoys connecting over shared stories, experiences, and laughter.