Dr. April Grace

Superintendent

Shawnee Public Schools 

Dr. April Grace, is the Emeritus Superintendent of  Shawnee Public Schools. She led the district between 2016 to 2023 and served as an educator in Oklahoma for more than 30 years. Dr. Grace’s focus has always been on reimagining, redefining, and redesigning education to better serve students. This focus led her to several unique initiatives in Shawnee Public Schools, including a Magna Award-winning partnership with a telemedicine provider and a commitment for every school to focus on staff and student health and wellness. Under her leadership, SPS has been recognized as a top workplace in local and statewide publications.

Dr. Grace also served as the Oklahoma Association of School Administrators President, only the second female elected in the 88-year history of the organization and the only one in the past 25 years. In June 2021, she was named  2021 OASA State Superintendent of the Year. In June 2020, she was named as one of the members of the 34th Class of Leadership Oklahoma. Other awards include the 2020 State Superintendent’s Award for Arts Excellence and the 2019 Oklahoma School Administrator Award from Oklahoma School Librarians. She was one of only seven administrators from across the nation to serve on the first cohort of the American Association of School Librarians Administrative Collaborative. She is a member of the 2018 AASA National Women’s Leadership Consortium, a cohort of 25 top female leaders in the United States.  Dr. Grace serves on the RELSW Governing Board, examining the research of best practices across a five-state region.

Since 2001, Dr. Grace has been an online instructor for the University of Phoenix master’s of education program for a range of courses, including Personnel Administration in Education, Critical Issues in Education, and Professional Communications. She is also an adjunct faculty member at the University of Central Oklahoma and Southern Nazarene University, teaching master’s level classes in educational leadership, critical issues in education, education law and many other areas. Dr. Grace is president of the Oklahoma Association of School Personnel Administrators and a member of the Cooperative Council for Oklahoma School Administration and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. She holds a doctorate in Educational Leadership from the University of Phoenix, a master’s degree in Secondary School Administration from the University of Oklahoma and a bachelor’s degree in Science Education from the University of Oklahoma.