Meet Leah Fregulia, a Phoenix Community Alliance "City-Shaper"

Leah Fregulia has always been a teacher (even when she didn’t know it). 

A lack of interest in organic chemistry may have closed the door on a potential medical career, but generations of Arizona School for the Arts students, parents, and alums are thankful for the change in course. Starting with the school curriculum she developed, Fregulia has been a key figure within the charter school since its inception in 1995.  

Yet, it is the end of an era for her. At the close of the 2025 school year, Fregulia is retiring as ASA’s Head of School, a position she took over from its founder, Mark Francis, almost twenty years prior. 

For the last three decades, she has left an indelible impact as an active participant in Downtown revitalization, serving as President of Hance Park Conservancy and currently co-chair of Phoenix Community Alliance’s Arts, Culture & Public Life Committee (ACPL) and Board of Directors. 

Phoenix Community Alliance (PCA) was built on the foundation of industry professionals who all share the same goal: to use their expertise to benefit the Greater Downtown Phoenix community. 

PCA: Where did the idea for ASA’s unique curriculum begin?  

Leah Fregulia: Before I got my master's degree in anthropology at the London School of Economics, I taught history to fifth and sixth graders for a few years. In the process of doing that, I took a hard look at what type of culture a school needs to help kids thrive and be part of a community. How do you build that? What does the classroom look like? What does the system look like? That was the genesis. 

I came to ASA with the philosophy that good teaching and dynamic learning environments mean you can do well on the test, not just teach to the test. Kids must be full of discovery, and you have to set up learning experiences to entice them to learn. There must be some self-driven interest there that what they're exploring has relevance and meaning. 

The students are going to collaborate in a group. There are no single desks. Instead of memorizing things and dates, we taught depth but not breadth, such as subjects of deep historical importance, research, etc. This really requires teachers to be experts. Teachers go into teaching and feel deflated because they have this expert knowledge, and yet [feel as if they have to] use these dry textbooks. 

When our alums come back, they're so appreciative. During one week in the spring, the school comes to a stop, and the students give presentations on an academic subject they've been working on for an entire quarter. It's like building a college thesis. When they return from college, they say, “Freshman year was so easy [because we did those things].” 

PCA: ASA has been a fixture within the Downtown community from the beginning. What motivated the decision to be located here when Downtown wasn't as proven decades ago as it is now? 

Fregulia: The [First Congregational] Church said, “We'll incubate you here, help you grow, and charge you very little for a lease.” It was cheap because nobody else wanted to be here, but it was also in the arts district, which had Phoenix Theatre, the [Phoenix] Art Museum, and the [Burton Barr Public] Library, and we were also next to the I-10.  

We knew we would not be a neighborhood school but a destination school. We needed to ensure that we were accessible. And then in 2008, [when the church motivated us to move because we outgrew them], we started looking for property. We looked everywhere, and nothing satisfied us because we didn't want to leave. The light rail was also coming online, and our kids rode it with their little violins. Now, we have two transportation arteries. 

That's when we bought the [former Department of Economic Security and Banner Transplant Center] properties and slowly expanded. We pride ourselves on being one of the first adaptive reuse projects Downtown to plant our flag and make the campus a jewel [within the community]. 

PCA: [Former PCA President] Don Keuth frequently comes up in these conversations as a prime influencer who recruited and/or shaped many of our current board of directors. Was he your introduction to PCA? 

Fregulia: Oh, yes. I was a baby Head of School [in 2007], building a board for the first time. I did not know anything about being an executive. [Our Founder Mark Francis] was retiring, and [I was] it. As I talked to people about building boards, I’d also invite them onto my board. One of the board members, Paul Winslow, a founder at Orcutt-Winslow, said we should get together with Don Keuth.  

Don was so gracious with his time and said, “Let me tour your school,” and he was completely sold. He was the pivotal board member I brought on who changed our composition into a professional board. He had a passion for mentorship, and I think he believed in young women leaders taking the reins in city leadership. In fact, I met Catrina [Kahler, her Arts, Culture & Public Life (ACPL) Co-Chair] through Don, who said, “If you want some PR [for ASA], this is the lady you need to talk to.” 

Then one day, I said, “Don, don't you think I could be part of PCA?” At the time, nonprofits and education entities were not represented at the board level. That's how I started. Whatever room I was in, Don would always give us a shout-out, and then, because Ed Zuercher was in the mayor's office, he would always shout out ASA. 

One of the great things about PCA is networking. If I needed somebody to lead strategic planning, I would have asked Carol Poore to do some pro bono strategic planning for me. Mark Stratz was my ASA broker [for the expansion]. All roads cross through PCA. 

PCA: Can you describe how PCA’s Hance Park Fundraising Committee and Hance Park Conservancy (HPC) interact with each other? For instance, the fundraising effort currently focuses on attracting people to the park by emphasizing a safe and welcoming environment around the entrances through public-private partnerships. 

Fregulia: A lot of the reasoning for the Conservancy at the time didn't have to do with the park itself, but more so the neighborhoods and people around it, like Kris[tina] Floor and Chris Brown[, of Floor Associates]. As HPC, we inform and advocate for decisions but are not the decision-makers because we're not fundraising.  

We're an all-volunteer board that knew we needed a bigger arm [for fundraising]. Larry [Lazarus] and Tim [Sprague] stepped out of HPC and onto PCA[‘s newly formed Hance Park Fundraising Committee in 2014] to be that bridge to aggressively talk to people to make this an iconic park.  

[For instance, for the Master Plan], it was a collaborative process. The city listened because we had a nice representation of the [surrounding] entities around the park. They allowed us ample opportunity to view things, give feedback, and ask questions. And even when the draft was done, we sat down with [the architect] Hargreaves [Jones] to further refine those design elements.  

We take much leadership from coalition partnerships, like PCA, but our role is really beating on the drum for safety, cleanliness, and lighting. If we want to be the “Central Park,” then people want to have access. The access [in those entryways] is a little mystical, but the demand is there. On a nice day, the park is flooded [with people]. It's a matter of cleaning and opening things up. 

Leah Fregulia's post-retirement years have yet to be written. However, there are some things she knows for sure. 

Fregulia began transitioning David Lujan, a former Arizona Department of Child Safety CEO and state senator, into her job in February, who will also assume her place on PCA’s Board of Directors. 

After taking six months to decompress, she’ll re-engage as a private professional Member. She is thoughtful about giving Lujan the space to grow and define his own leadership style. She believes it’s important to support a clear, unified voice for the organization, but is still intentional about stepping back to let him pave the way.  

Yet, there’s still Hance Park Conservancy, where she serves as Vice President, and other PCA Committees to keep her busy.  

“I'm looking forward to exploring other areas and not necessarily being in that [Arts and Education] box,” Fregulia said.