Program Administrator
East County SELPA
High Quality IEPs Project

U.S.: California Hub | NORTH AMERICA

Noreen was born in Mexico and moved to the United States when she was about 4 years old. She began to learn English when she entered school in the United States. Noreen always dreamt of working with children. She has been in the field of education for 20 years. She began her educational career in the group home setting, and then moved to the public school setting as a Kindergarten teacher. She taught in both general education and special education settings in various grade levels and has been a Program Specialist and Special Education Program Administrator supporting Early Childhood through Secondary programs. Noreen has worked within the California state system of support Special Education Resource leads previously as an Improvement Facilitator for the System Improvement Leads Project, and currently as Program Administrator for the High Quality IEPs project with a common goal of improving outcomes for students with disabilities. Throughout her career Noreen finds every opportunity to share her core beliefs of equity and access for all, with a foundation in Universal Design for Learning and Growth Mindset.

As an adoptive foster parent to two beautiful girls, and sibling of a brother with exceptionality and neurodiversity, Noreen believes that ALL children can learn, ALL children can contribute, and ALL children deserve a champion. As a grateful part of the Compassionate Systems Master Practitioner community, Noreen leverages the power of applying research based tools and practices of merging hearts and minds to affect transformational educational system level change efforts.