![\"Leighangela](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/SUT-L-Leighangela-Brady-01.jpg\")
Leighangela Brady is retiring from her role as superintendent of National School District. (Stephanie Poirier)<\/p>\nThe superintendent of National School District will retire June 30 after a decade at its helm and a career that has taken her all around the county.<\/p>\n
Leighangela Brady is retiring from her role as superintendent of National School District. (Stephanie Poirier)<\/p>\n
Before heading to National City, Leighangela Brady was assistant superintendent for educational services for Encinitas Union School District.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to bring the things that North County kids were getting down to South County,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
In National City, she\u2019s particularly proud of a Read Across America event that has turned into an annual tradition, with people Zooming in from across the country to read to students.<\/p>\n
In her first year as superintendent, she was looking for a book for all of her sixth-graders to read and found \u201cLast Stop on Market Street,\u201d a picture book by San Diego State University professor Matt de la Pe\u00f1a.<\/p>\n
The book tells the story of a boy riding the bus with his grandmother after church and of her helping him find the beauty in everyday life. De la Pe\u00f1a grew up in National City and has said it shows up in a lot of his work.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe kids could see the book, hear the book \u2014 and then I told the kids that this book was written by somebody who grew up in National City like them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
As part of the event, the district asked students to create their own picture books in a districtwide competition. Each class and then school names a winning book, and from those the school board names a districtwide winner.<\/p>\n
The district then publishes the winning book so that schools and the National City library can shelve it among the books read each year for Read Across America.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just shows that connection from reading to writing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Brady said whoever is \u201clucky enough\u201d to lead the district next will become part of a family and need to care about the families in the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s something that board is going to be looking for \u2014 somebody that\u2019s going to love and care and have the best interest of National School District and the community,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Originally Published: October 17, 2025 at 1:55 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The superintendent of National School District will retire June 30 after a decade at its helm and a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[15,181,23,100,74,76,75,1696],"class_list":{"0":"post-11182","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-education","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-local-news","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-san-diego","13":"tag-san-diego-headlines","14":"tag-san-diego-news","15":"tag-top-stories-sdut"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}