Dr. José Leyba is a native Arizonan, received his Bachelor of Arts and advanced degrees at Arizona State University (ASU), and began his teaching career at the junior high level where he taught English, Social Studies, remedial Math, and Bilingual classes.
In addition to K-12 teaching experience, Dr. Leyba has held positions as Principal, Director, Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources, and Superintendent of the Isaac School District (1995-2000) in Phoenix, Arizona. During his tenure as superintendent of schools, he served as Co-Chair of the 70 Arizona low wealth, plaintiff, school districts that filed the Roosevelt vs. Bishop school finance lawsuit. His leadership and advocacy were instrumental in the success of the case and the legislation that resulted in changing the inequitable Arizona system of school finance.
After a successful tenure in K-12, Dr. Leyba transitioned to higher education. He has served as Associate Faculty at Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University. In 2001, he joined the Maricopa Community College District (MCCD) where he served in a variety of executive positions including Associate Vice Chancellor and Acting Vice Chancellor for Human Resources, Provost and Vice President. MCCD is the largest community college system in the country with ten colleges serving over 250,000 students.
In 2005, Dr. Leyba was named Interim President of Los Angeles Mission College (LAMC), one of nine colleges in the Los Angeles Community College District. For family reasons he returned to Arizona, and served as Vice President for Corporate Development at the Maricopa Community Colleges Foundation and then retired from MCCD. He has pursued his passion of assisting those in the education community with most need through his work as a speaker and Executive Consultant in higher education/K-12, where he has served as an Executive Leadership Coach for “Turnaround” School Principals/Superintendents at Arizona State University, and Executive Coach for New Superintendents with Grand Canyon University.
On January 3, 2011 Dr. Leyba assumed the executive leadership role of Acting Provost/Executive Vice Chancellor for the Pima Community College’s seven college campuses, which serve over 55,000 students in Tucson, Arizona. He had previously served as Interim Vice President of Instruction at Pima Community Colleges West Campus in 2009 and was thoroughly familiar with PCC. After, completing this assignment he returned to the Phoenix area to continue his Executive Coaching assignments, and serves in the following roles: Executive Search and Retreat Consultant for the Association of Community College Trustees, Search Consultant/Faculty JG Consulting, Former Director, Association of Latino Administrators & Superintendents, Superintendents Leadership Academy (SLA). The SLA is the premier preparation program for Latinx Superintendents in the country. Dr. Leyba also serves as Distinguished Faculty and Mentor for the National Community College Hispanic Council Fellows, and formerly for the National Council on Black American Affairs Mid-Level African Administrators Leadership Institute. Dr. Leyba is currently conducting research on the Latinx Way of Leadership and lives in Tempe, with his wife, Debra Gomez, who is also a retired Superintendent. They are both proud to have been founding members of AZALAS, the first official ALAS Chapter, founded in 1988.
