“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can.” –John Wesley
Holly Paczak begins a two-year period on the Junior League of New Orleans (JLNO) Board of Directors as the President-Elect. During the 2021-2022 League year, she will assist the President in her duties as Chief Executive Officer and will assume those responsibilities if the President is unable to serve during her term. Holly will become JLNO’s President for the 2022-2023 League year beginning June 1, 2022. This two-year term exemplifies JLNO’s emphasis on training and learning. Her experiences in this role provide opportunities for Holly to thoughtfully prepare for the years ahead, ensuring her tenure maximizes community impact. During the President-Elect year, she will study JLNO’s governance documents, policies, procedures and best practices, thus allowing her to emulate previous leaders by ensuring a sustainable and impactful future. As President-Elect, she hopes “to have the opportunity to continue to learn about the organization, understand the needs and wants of the membership, and remain true to the mission of JLNO, so that we can begin the planning for another 100 years.”
Holly joined JLNO in 2008 and has chaired Period Supplies, Community Council Strategic Planning, Rebuilding Together, Educare and Judgment Call. She also was the Community Council Director in 2017-2018. “I love that the League is a training organization. From my experiences with the league, I have learned skills that I wouldn’t have learned elsewhere. From technology to planning, finances and budgets to managing teams and resources, there is always some nugget of knowledge I can glean from any League interaction. Community shifts, committee meetings, joint council and GMM all provide opportunities to connect with talented, creative, and determined women.”
Born and raised in Meridian, Mississippi, Holly attended Mississippi State University, where she received a Bachelor of Science in Education Psychology, a Master of Science in Education Psychology and Education Specialist Degree in School Psychology. She also interned with the Louisiana School Psychology Internship Consortium, which is accredited by the American Psychological Association. In her almost 15-year career, she has worked for two national technical assistance centers funded by the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs—the National Center on Special Education Accountability Monitoring and the Data Accountability Center. Holly has served as the Project Coordinator for the TIERS (Teams Intervening Early to Reach all Students) Group at the LSU Human Development Center leading technical assistance, where she coached and directed support to Local Education Agencies and State Education Agencies to improve academic and behavioral systems of support. She even worked for some time at the Bering Strait School District in Unalakleet, Alaska.
As a school psychologist and the NOLA Public Schools Director of School Support and Improvement, Holly provides technical assistance to schools in NOLAPS with implementation of special education compliance and programming, Section 504 and multi-tiered systems of support.
A resident of Uptown, Holly and her husband, Brad, have two daughters, Helena (7) and Mary Katherine (2). In her spare time, she loves to read anything and everything from fiction to biographies, industrial organization to technology, education to social science. “I enjoy it all!”
