Gloria attended Von Humboldt Elementary School and Tuley High School (now Clemente). She attended Felician College, where she received her Associate of Arts degree in Liberal Arts. She then attended the University of Illinois at Chicago for two semesters. She received a Transfer Student Academic Scholarship from Roosevelt University, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Education. Her first teaching position with Chicago Public Schools was a Bilingual Teacher at Monroe School. She taught there for ten years. She received her Master of Arts in Bilingual Education from Governor State University and her Certificate of Advanced Studies in Educational Leadership from National Louis University. In 1990, Gloria was tapped by the District Superintendent to serve as interim principal of a new school that was to be opened to relieve overcrowding in six schools: Monroe, Nixon, Nobel, Mozart, Funston, and Cameron. Gloria received her first principal contract from the newly elected LSC and in 1991, the school was renamed Ana Roque de Duprey. Since that time, Gloria has worked with a committed team of educators to build the school community to what it is today. The school won a 2006 School Improvement Award from the Illinois State Board of Education for exemplary gains on the Illinois Learning Standards. Gloria earned a Doctor of Education Degree in Curriculum and Instruction from Loyola University in Chicago.