Velia began her career in education as a bilingual/dual immersion kindergarten teacher in Chicago Public Schools. She acted as founding kindergarten teacher at Erie Elementary Charter School on Chicago’s West Side before becoming assistant principal in 2008. In 2010, she became the principal of Erie and led the creation of the middle school grades as well as the construction and development of a new, state-of-the-art facility through the managing of a $12 million State of Illinois capital grant. In 2016, Velia moved on to develop and coach emerging school leaders in California and Texas through the nonprofit school leadership organization New Leaders. Velia serves on numerous nonprofit boards that service disadvantaged populations in the areas of immigration services, health, and after school programming. She was a part of The Latino Policy Forum’s Latino Leadership Academy and has attended high quality leadership trainings from various institutions such as Harvard Graduate School of Education and Deloitte University. Velia holds a bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; a master’s degree in Bilingual/Bicultural Education from DePaul University; and a master’s degree in Educational and Organizational Leadership from Roosevelt University in Chicago.