Judi Stevenson-Garcia

“I am passionate about supporting teachers and pedagogical leaders in learning to design equitable learning environments that provide all children agency in their own learning and that celebrate the unique identities of each child as individual learners and valued contributors to their classroom and school communities.

Judi is a systems thinker. She is invaluable when the team is trying to get its bearings in a complicated situation. And she can also help a team think through the pros and cons of various options.

Judi has expertise in supporting early childhood classroom quality practices, including infant and toddler settings, teaching practices that support the development of mathematical thinking, and settings that support equitable learning opportunities for children who are emergent bilinguals. She has deep knowledge of and experience in Head Start and Early Head Start program performance standards and implementation, mixed-delivery systems, and engaging families and community stakeholders in informing policies and practices.

Judi started her work in early childhood as a toddler teacher, and had experiences as a lead teacher in infant, toddler, and PreK classrooms before moving into elementary school, where she taught first and fifth grades. As a graduate student at Rutgers University, she fell in love with research and policy development and decided to stay. She has led state PreK program evaluation studies, provided state and federal policy technical assistance and analysis, and has deep and varied experience providing technical assistance to state and local leaders working in Head Start, child care and public school systems. She also designed a classroom assessment tool and professional development and coaching tools to enhance teacher’s support for children’s development of mathematical thinking and co-authored a formative assessment system to support teachers in authentic assessment of preschool children’s development. Judi has a B.A. in Early Childhood Education and a B.A. in Psychology from The College of New Jersey and a M.Ed. in Developmental Psychology from Rutgers University.