Dr. Claudia Kramer Santamaria is a native of Uruguay, South America and immigrated to Queens, NY at the age of 5. Her parents journeyed to the U.S. after a military takeover of her country, looking for a safer life for their children — both speaking only Spanish and having very limited education (her dad left school in 4th grade.) – they instilled in her that education was the key to a better life.  Claudia holds dearly the lessons from the challenges and struggles her family faced as undocumented immigrants in this country.  She was the first high school graduate in her family and the first to attend college in the United States. 

She graduated from St. Edward’s University in Austin and was hired at Zavala Elementary in East Austin, where she taught for 6 years as a 3rd, 4th and 5th grade bilingual teacher.  She learned the lessons about social justice and the marginality of families of color –  from her students, school families and then principal. The school’s partnerships and tools to engage the most disenfranchised families in Austin were the packed and taken in her 10 year journey as principal in 4 Austin schools.  Her most recent role, before retiring, was campus principal at the renowned Anita Uphaus Early Childhood Center, a state of the art facility built from the ground up with early learners in mind.

Claudia also led the district’s elementary team as Assistant Director of Multilingual Education before supervising 70 parent support specialists at the elementary and secondary levels for Austin ISD for 9 years.. Her life’s work has allowed her to understand and continue to work towards a common ground for families, community, children and school staff to engage and improve together.

Claudia has dedicated her career to serving children of low income households as an educator, as a community organizer and a social justice leader. She volunteered with Austin Interfaith for over 15 years as an advocate for social justice in policies that impact communities of color. Later, her volunteer  work shifted to becoming a community organizer funded by the Ford Foundation, at Austin Interfaith – where she led families of color  to engage in ways that  improved practices inside and outside schools, workforce, immigration and healthcare.  Claudia sits on the National Board of AVANCE, a non-profit that creates pathways to economic mobility for predominantly Latino families through high quality, culturally responsive, two-generation programming that ensures school-readiness for young children and opportunities for parents to build social and economic capital.

Claudia was a two-year recipient of the Barbara Jackson Scholar Award for minority scholars at Texas State University and her Ph.D. research captured families’ experiences in two way dual language education as well as a historical account of bilingual education and parents in schools at the national and Texas levels.

She is the proud  mother of Sophia and Fernando – and Lola the dog, and is married to Benjamin Kramer, VP of Education for Austin PBS.