About Maya Bauer

My career in education started in this bottom picture, as a fourth grade teacher in rural North Carolina completing my Teach for America commitment. While I have grown professionally since then, I have not forgotten the learning that took place as I saw what kids could achieve with the right instruction and supports, and got more comfortable collaborating with parents and families.

As a student, I attended a wide variety of institutions, starting out in my local public school and then attending a New England prep school for my high school years. I earned a B.A. in English from UCLA, and after teaching fourth grade, I returned to higher education and earned a M.Ed in Counseling from the University of Pennsylvania and a M.A. in School Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin before becoming licensed as a school psychologist in Texas (my licensure is still current).

As an educator, I have worked in a variety of grades and settings and in a variety of capacities. I have been a standardized test prep tutor in Austin and Philadelphia, an elementary school teacher in southside Chicago and rural North Carolina, as well as a school psychology practitioner across all grade levels, from 3 -21 years of age, in the Houston, Austin and DC metro areas. During this time, I wore a lot of hats: completing psychoeducational and psychological evaluations, conducting functional behavior assessments and creating behavior intervention plans, providing counseling and risk assessment, as well as engaging in parent and school staff consultation. I worked with students in all disability categories, from fully included in general education to fully educated in a self-contained special education setting.

I know from my own experience that all kids can flourish educationally, and some tweaks to the educational setting, curricula, and support can mean the difference between barely surviving and thriving. I am proud of having cultivated experiences with a diverse array of families who have children with differing goals and abilities, and bring more than a decade of direct educational experience to my advocacy and consulting work.