ADE Summit 2025

Lupe Peña de Martínez is a native of San Diego de Alejandria, Jalisco, México. Recently celebrating her 26-year anniversary as an Arkansan, having moved to the Natural State in July 1998, by way of California. Her husband, Adelso, is a native of Belize and they have a beautiful, blended family, together they have an energetic eight-year-old son and an additional four children brought to the marriage (ranging from 14 to 27-years-old). She shares that parenting is an amazing journey and it is very helpful to have kiddos at every “stage,” because one can see that no matter what is happening with one child – it too shall pass!

On a professional level, Lupe has served at DESE as Director of Student Support Services for three years. Prior to this, she served as principal of East End Middle School in Sheridan School District. Additionally, she worked for Little Rock School District for 16-years, as Assistant Lead Learner (Assistant Principal) at Forest Park Elementary, a decade in the ESOL Department as the Secondary ESL/SIOP® Instructional Specialist, working with teachers of English Learners and before this as a classroom teacher at Chicot Elementary.

In recent years, with a house full of children, Lupe has stepped back much of her community involvement, but in 2021 was appointed by Governor Hutchinson as a board member on the Arkansas State Library Board and is also wrapping up her final term as Treasurer of the Helping Hand of Little Rock. She has formerly served as a board member for the Central Arkansas Library System and as a Commissioner on the Arkansas Martin Luther King, Jr. Commission. A favorite activity is providing English/Spanish interpretation services on a volunteer basis, especially during the Salvation Army’s annual Angel Tree Project – sharing that innumerable people helped her family when they first arrived in this country and it her responsibility and privilege to pay this blessing forward.