I've spent more than twenty years in early childhood and special education. I started as a PreK teacher in Washington, DC Public Schools — first with children with severe autism, then general education prekindergarten in a high-performing charter school — and over time moved into the systems side: directing operations for DC's innovative teacher evaluation system, leading strategic initiatives for early childhood education at DCPS, and now overseeing early childhood curriculum, assessment, social-emotional programming, and coaching across more than 50 elementary schools in south Florida.

I have a master's in special education, training in applied behavior analysis, a leadership certification from Harvard, and a working fluency in American Sign Language from a semester at Gallaudet University. I've spent my career thinking about how children learn, how teachers teach, and what families need most.

I'm also a mom of three. Our family was built through adoption and donor conception. We're an LGBTQ+ household. And I've done my own work — navigated through seasons of life that change how you parent and how you show up for the people you love.

I built ConnectInUs because I kept finding big moments in parenting — telling my child their adoption story, helping siblings navigate their differences, walking my child into a new school year as the only child from a queer family — where I needed books and tools that were up to my standards, and I couldn't find them. So I made them myself. Other parents kept telling me they wanted them too.

This is what came of that. Everything here is something I needed, made for my own family first, and now shared with yours.