Roma Groves-Waters

By Chelsea Boniak | October 24, 2016

Roma joined the Children Rising board in July 2020 after nearly a decade of working alongside our team. As a dedicated educator since 1996, she has been committed to improving the lives of the children of Oakland. In 2009, she was appointed principal of Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School. She has been an outspoken proponent for our neighborhood schools, rallying the community to partner in support of the children. In Children Rising she recognized a community partner that could support her goals for the school with its literacy, library and STEAM programs. In 2018, she helped lead the development of Path2Math, Children Rising’s numeracy program, which is the first of its kind in the Oakland Unified School District.

Roma earned her Bachelor of Science, English Language and Literature Letters from Grambling State University, and her MA, Education from University of California (Berkeley). Married with two adult step kids and two  grandsons, she is a true southerner at heart. Roma is known for her cooking and entertaining “Louisiana style,” and her gumbo is excellent. You can frequently catch Roma and her husband Keith sitting on a dock or pier fishing.