Grant Wood AEA (retired)
Dr. Leslee Sandberg has been immersed in education since growing up in Peru, Illinois.
She received her bachelor’s from the University of Iowa and master’s from Illinois State University. She taught special education in the suburbs of Chicago and started the first Boy Scout Troop for children with disabilities.
Sandberg has lived in Iowa for 48 years after marrying Dr. Michael Sandberg, a retired professor at Coe College. She received her doctorate in education from the University of Iowa and worked for over 25 years at Grant Wood Area Education Agency in Cedar Rapids as a special education consultant, coordinator, associate director of special education and regional facilitator.
Sandberg has also been an active volunteer. She and friend Kate Rose created a reading camp for children held at Coe College each summer, which Sandberg directed for 14 years before handing it over to First Presbyterian Church. Sandberg was also a volunteer chaplain at Unity Point St. Luke’s Hospital for 30 years. Currently, she volunteers with Catherine McAuley Center as an English language tutor and is a member of the New Horizons Band of Cedar Rapids.
Sandberg and her husband have two daughters, Emily Sandberg and Sally Wiley, and three grandsons: Beckett, Theo and Grady Wiley.