Jaclyn (Jackee) Ballesteros (she/her/ella) is originally from Austin, Texas but has called Denver home for almost five years. Currently, she is a grade level chair for the ECE-4 team at KIPP Northeast Elementary, a school serving the far northeast Denver community. In this role, she leads an amazing group of early childhood educators by designing opportunities to embed culturally responsive instruction across curriculum and empowering her team to implement play based instruction and
assessment in alignment with TS Gold standards. She acts as a liaison for her school leadership when designing systems and protocols that fit the licensing requirements for the ECE program. She also coaches teaching fellows and paraprofessionals on child guidance, lesson plan design and teaching through strengths-based mentoring. She has created and led professional development for her school staff on the importance of language diversity and translanguaging to better serve the school’s culturally and linguistically abundant student population.
Jackee graduated from Texas State University with a degree in elementary education and has her graduate degree from the University of Colorado-Boulder in Educational Equity and Cultural Diversity. She originally started as a K-12 math major but switched degrees after taking a sociology of education course at CU-Boulder. As a teacher of nine years, who has worked in primarily urban schools, this course connected the dots between the historical inequities and injustices of the American education system and their impact on underserved and marginalized communities.
During her time in Colorado, Jackee has pursued various opportunities to develop herself as an informed and action based educator. From 2020-2021, she was a Colorado Teach Plus Policy Fellow where she focused on educational policy at the local and national level. She was able to come together with educators across the state to learn about policy and created projects to close the opportunity gap for future Colorado teachers from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. This experience culminated in speaking before the Colorado State Legislature on a bill to support programs for teacher diversity. Currently, she is a Fellow in Cohort 14 of the Buell Early Childhood Leadership Program (BECLP). BECLP and its instructors have cultivated a desire to lead from an authentic space that is knowledgeable, courageous and community driven.
In her spare time, Jackee loves to hike the vast trails around the front range with her dogs, Oak and Daisy, and read with each dog cuddled at her side. She is a certified yoga instructor and loves to incorporate mindfulness and breath work into her classroom spaces.
assessment in alignment with TS Gold standards. She acts as a liaison for her school leadership when designing systems and protocols that fit the licensing requirements for the ECE program. She also coaches teaching fellows and paraprofessionals on child guidance, lesson plan design and teaching through strengths-based mentoring. She has created and led professional development for her school staff on the importance of language diversity and translanguaging to better serve the school’s culturally and linguistically abundant student population.
Jackee graduated from Texas State University with a degree in elementary education and has her graduate degree from the University of Colorado-Boulder in Educational Equity and Cultural Diversity. She originally started as a K-12 math major but switched degrees after taking a sociology of education course at CU-Boulder. As a teacher of nine years, who has worked in primarily urban schools, this course connected the dots between the historical inequities and injustices of the American education system and their impact on underserved and marginalized communities.
During her time in Colorado, Jackee has pursued various opportunities to develop herself as an informed and action based educator. From 2020-2021, she was a Colorado Teach Plus Policy Fellow where she focused on educational policy at the local and national level. She was able to come together with educators across the state to learn about policy and created projects to close the opportunity gap for future Colorado teachers from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. This experience culminated in speaking before the Colorado State Legislature on a bill to support programs for teacher diversity. Currently, she is a Fellow in Cohort 14 of the Buell Early Childhood Leadership Program (BECLP). BECLP and its instructors have cultivated a desire to lead from an authentic space that is knowledgeable, courageous and community driven.
In her spare time, Jackee loves to hike the vast trails around the front range with her dogs, Oak and Daisy, and read with each dog cuddled at her side. She is a certified yoga instructor and loves to incorporate mindfulness and breath work into her classroom spaces.