This Philly principal struggled as a student. Now she inspires kids in Kensington.

Awilda Balbuena graduated from high school unable to read proficiently. She was rejected from every law school she applied to.

Now, she’s one of Philadelphia’s best school leaders, the recipient of a 2025 Lindback Award for Distinguished Principal Leadership.

Balbuena’s rise is remarkable, but emblematic of what the Gloria Casarez Elementary principal tells the students and staff of the Kensington school: There is promise and power inside all of us, and with hard work, we can accomplish great things, even among difficult circumstances.

“I want to breathe hope into people who were discouraged like I was,” said Balbuena. “This isn’t your most uplifting neighborhood; it’s not like you’re going to leave my school and go run into hope. You have to go looking for hope. You have to be connected to someone who has that hope.”

The other principals recognized with Lindback Awards this year are: KaTiedra Argro, Philadelphia High School for Girls; Melissa Bragg, Hancock Elementary; Paula Furman, AMY at James Martin; William Lawrence, John Marshall Elementary; Nichole Polk, Potter-Thomas Elementary; and Marla Travis, West Philadelphia High.

» READ MORE: These 7 principals won an award that comes with $20,000 for their schools. Here are their dream projects.

Balbuena was born and raised in Allentown, the daughter of parents who came to Pennsylvania from Puerto Rico — her father, when he was 9 to pick fruit, her mother, with a sixth-grade education. Spanish was her first language.

Her parents split when Balbuena was young, and her father was absent for most of her childhood. Her mother was a hard worker, but focused on raising her four girls and making ends meet. Balbuena, the oldest child, learned to decode words but struggled to comprehend what she was reading.

In 13 years of public school, no one noticed her reading issues — she was well behaved, so she was passed along. College wasn’t on her mother’s mind, or her counselor’s, so Balbuena was put on a nonacademic track and given courses in parenting and home economics.

After graduation, she needed to work but lacked skills, and struggled finding a job.

“I knew how to type, but I wasn’t able to proofread what I was typing — the ripple effects are endless when you’re illiterate,” she said. “I fell through the school’s cracks, and I fell through my mom’s,” she said.

Balbuena joined the Army, which she said was a saving grace — she became a patient administration specialist, supporting hospitals’ clinical staffs. After her military stint, Balbuena moved back to Allentown and worked at a local hospital.

But after five years on the job, she reached her ceiling, financially. A medical resident asked Balbuena why she wasn’t in school, and that was a lightbulb moment. She enrolled at Lehigh Carbon Community College, where professors in her remedial courses did a shocking thing: They believed in Balbuena.

“At first I thought they were poking fun of me,” she said. “Eventually, I realized they were sincere.”

She threw herself into the experience, a 29-year-old playing on the volleyball team with teenagers. After earning her associate degree, Balbuena applied to Fordham University hoping to eventually become a public defender. She was a Latin American studies major, fascinated by learning history — not whitewashed history, which painted people of color in a negative light, but the history of all people, including Latinos’ contributions to society.

Though college was tough in some ways — funds were limited ― she found a confidence she had previously lacked, a pride in who she was and where she came from.

But after earning her bachelor’s degree from Fordham, Balbuena came up against another roadblock. She didn’t test well, got a low score on the LSAT, and was rejected from all eight law schools she applied to.

Back home, Balbuena set up a meeting with a counselor at nearby Lehigh University. He listened to Balbuena discuss her desire to fix societal injustices, and he knew just where to steer her.

“He said, ‘You need to be teaching children,‘” said Balbuena. She earned a master’s degree in education from Lehigh, got a job teaching in the Allentown School District, then followed a mentor to the Philadelphia School District, where she became an ESL specialist in 2005.

But as too often happens in the under-resourced district, budget cuts meant job losses, and Balbuena’s position was axed. She had to go back to the classroom, teaching sixth grade at what was then Jones Middle School in Port Richmond.

By the time she arrived in her classroom in December, she was her students’ fifth teacher in two months. People took bets on when she would leave, but Balbuena said she “doesn’t scare easily.” She loved that class, the students others found tough to love.

Soon after she arrived at Jones, though, another ESL central office job opened up. Balbuena told the higher-ups she couldn’t take it.

“I promised those kids I would be their teacher for the year,” she said. “I stayed. To this day, that’s still my favorite class I’ve ever taught, my best teaching memory.”

Eventually, Balbuena returned to central office work, then became an assistant principal at Smedley Elementary in Frankford. The district turned that school over to a charter in 2010 and, again, Balbuena had to find a new job.

The principalship of Sheridan Elementary, now known as Casarez, was open, and Balbuena’s boss suggested she apply. The school is on East Ontario Avenue, in a small building constructed in 1899; it educates about 450 students in grades K-5 in a neighborhood where residents cope with high levels of gun violence, drug use, and poverty.

She’s been there ever since. The work is not easy, running a school where the budget doesn’t always stretch to pay for all needs, where children are often coping with complicated lives and significant trauma. But Balbuena has made it a community where joy is emphasized, where everything is celebrated, where kids’ voices are heard.

“I have found the place where I can make the biggest difference, and that’s why I stay,” she said.

She sees her mother in Casarez’s hardworking parents, many of whom speak Spanish, as Balbuena does, fluently. She sees herself in its students, in her staff, from the teachers she encourages to become principals to the support staff she cheers on to earn degrees and credentials. She works to find teachers who look like her students — more than 40% of Casarez staff are Latino.

“I tell them, ‘Listen, if I tell you my story and how I got here, you probably wouldn’t believe me,” said Balbuena.

But don’t mistake Balbuena for a pushover. She has high standards for her staff, and those who don’t measure up won’t last at Casarez, she said.

“If you’re not roaring” — Casarez’s mascot is the Tiger, and kids are often encouraged to do great things, or roar — “then your kids won’t roar. You’ve got to walk the walk.”

Despite its small size, Casarez has two reading specialists, two counselors, two academic coaches, choices that require much finessing of the school’s budget. But it’s worth it, Balbuena said.

“I believe in public school,” she said. “I know the public school education I had and I never want to give that to another kid.”

The best part of Balbuena’s week happened in a tiny school conference room on a recent Thursday. Casarez awards students points for good behavior via its Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports program, and for 500 points — a big time accomplishment — kids can pick lunch with the principal as the prize.

On this day, pizza, chicken nuggets, and juice boxes were on the menu. Balbuena — impeccably styled as usual in pearls and a T-shirt honoring Gloria Casarez, the trailblazing civil rights leader who once attended the school — fielded questions and compliments from her excited students, who came from all grades.

One curious scholar wanted to know how her heart got in her body. Another had questions about how life began, and what languages Balbuena spoke.

Another scrutinized the principal’s face.

“I like your freckles!” the little girl told Balbuena.

Another child leaned in, as if to tell a visitor a secret.

“I love my principal,” she said.