Michelee Cruz-Crawford, Ed.D.

Regent Michelee “Shelly” Cruz-Crawford was elected in November 2022 to serve on the Board of Regents as the representative for District 8.

Regent Cruz-Crawford has lived in Nevada since 1989. She graduated from the College of Southern Nevada High School in 2000 where she earned the Millennium Scholarship. She also earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology (2004) and a master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction (2010) from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She then obtained her Instructional Leadership and Teaching English as a Second Language endorsements from Sierra Nevada College (now University of Nevada, Reno) in 2013. She received a certificate from Georgetown University through a partnership with the Public Education Foundation for Educational Leadership in 2021. She earned an Education Doctorate in Leadership and Policy (2023) from William Howard Taft University where her dissertation focused on the recruitment of diverse educators by removing barriers for routes to licensure.

Regent Cruz-Crawford is a first generation high school and college graduate, who serves as an officer in the Air Force National Guard, and is a school principal. Over the past twenty years, she has taught kindergarten through college. All of what she does is grounded in her “Why.” She strives to create opportunities through education advocacy because she believes education is the pathway to societal upward mobility. She has written Senate Bill SB352 which created $10 million dollars in state educator recruitment funding. She also assisted with the $65 billion 2021 Federal Recovery Broadband Act that ensures that all of our students have access to the internet. She truly believes we all have common goals and strives to work with everyone in the community to identify these goals and work collectively because we are better together!

Regent Cruz-Crawford serves on the Nevada Department of Education’s Principal Advisory Committee, Nevada National Guard’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion task force, she is the Nevada Association of School Administrators’ board secretary, she also serves on a local School Organizational Team, and is a member of the Nevada Association of Latino Administrators. She was named the Public Education Foundation’s 24th Annual Education Hero for her education advocacy work. Lastly, she is the first Latino elected Board of Regents with a goal to connect high school students to Nevada colleges and trade careers.

Regent Cruz-Crawford has been married since 2002 to her husband Michael who is a fifth generation ironworker. Together, they have a daughter, Lola, born in 2005 and a son, Gustavo, born in 2007. Lola will be attending the University of Nevada, Reno in 2023.