Presenters

Bio:

Jody began her career at Interamerican Academy (IAA), a private international school in Ecuador, as the ELL specialist for grades K-12. Her position later grew into the ELL and Language Arts Coordinator for the whole school and the ELA teacher for middle grades 6-8. After moving back to the United States, Jody taught for one year as a K-5 ELL Specialist at Carver Elementary for North St. Paul Public Schools before moving to New York City. In NYC, Jody served as the K-4 ELL specialist for Achievement First Bushwick Elementary in Brooklyn, NY, where she led ELD and literacy instruction and intervention. Most recently, Jody served as both a full-time instructor and staff developer at Teachers College, Columbia University. As a staff developer, Jody supported both New York City public schools and schools around the country with literacy staff development in both English and Spanish on topics such as culturally sustaining literacy practices, supporting language learners, small group instruction, phonics, and decodable texts. She was also on the team of writers for the new TCRWP Units of Study in reading and writing, creating content for supporting language learners in the new units, now published through Heinemann. After moving back to Minnesota, Jody started with MPS in August 2022 and has served as the K-8 Literacy Content Lead in Core Academics and Instruction and now serves as the Director of ELD & Bilingual Programming in the Multilingual Department