Dr. Kanako Wong is the Associate Dean of Graduate Studies at Reach University. In her role, she oversees and supports the development of the Teacher Intern Program (with an accompanying Masters of Arts in Teaching) for teachers seeking their preliminary California teaching credential, and the Teacher Induction Program for teachers seeking their clear California teaching credential. She began at Reach as a faculty member in the teacher intern program, and was most recently the director of the teacher induction program.
Kana began her career in education in 2004, when she joined Teach for America and was placed in Las Vegas, NV as part of the Las Vegas Charter Corps. After a decade teaching in a Title 1 public elementary school in Las Vegas, she moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area and worked at a Charter school as both a teacher and an administrator.
Recently, she graduated from the University of San Francisco, obtaining an EdD in Organization and Leadership. Her dissertation was titled, “Supporting Mentors of Color in Charter Schools through Collaborative Practices in a Teacher Induction Program”. She leveraged her work as the Director of Teacher Induction, and modeled job-embedded learning, the premise of Reach University and the foundation of our methods.
She strives to provide an excellent, high quality teacher preparation for all teachers who come through Reach graduate studies through collaborative methods, so that they are prepared to meet the needs of students in underserved communities and maintain a long lasting career in teaching.