Liberty County School System Superintendent Dr. Valya Lee has been named a finalist for the Lexington Institute’s second cohort of personalized learning fellows.

The nonprofit public-policy think tank, which is focused on education reform, announced the names of 27 finalists, including Lee, for the Lexington Education Leadership Award cohort.

Based on the success of the first 10 leaders to go through the program. Lexington opened applications for a second cohort of 10 in July. To date, more than 100 leaders have applied to participate in this fellowship. For this round, 27 were selected as finalists and 10 will be selected as fellows.

The LELA fellowship is six-month program designed to expose district leaders to personalized learning and facilitate the first steps to implementation.

Other Georgia finalists for the second cohort are Dr. Wanda Creel, superintendent of the Gainesville City School System; Dr. Marvin Howard, superintendent of the Randolph County School System; and Dr. William Hunter, superintendent of the Polk School District.

“We are so excited to include 27 distinguished leaders as finalists for the second cohort,” said Don Soifer, the executive director of the Lexington Institute. “Every application we received was impressive, and this group of finalists even more so. It was wonderful to see the commitment to supporting student learning expressed by every leader. It will be difficult to select only 10 of these innovative districts to move forward with the more intensive support provided by the fellowship.”