PAULETTE GARZA

TPI-US REVIEWER

Paulette Garza has been in the field of education for over forty years. Her nineteen-year teaching experience spans early childhood through eighth grade in a variety of settings. For the past thirty years, her focus has been on improving student outcomes in reading. 



Beginning in 2004, she worked as a district reading specialist/coach for Austin Independent School District. She trained and coached special education teachers from early childhood through high school in the administration and analysis of diagnostic assessments aligned to interventions, progress monitoring, inclusion models, and differentiation strategies. During this time, she also worked with the RTI and ELA departments to design a multi-tiered system of support aligned to district resources. 

While working at the University of Texas Elementary School as the senior intervention specialist, she assisted in the development of an Urban Education Collaborative pilot. The pilot partnered with the University of Texas Charter School with The University of Texas. The purpose of this pilot was to provide education majors with evidence-based strategies and structures to prepare them to teach students in urban settings. Paulette provided professional development for the professors in these cohorts and served as a guest lecturer in reading and early childhood courses. In this position, her responsibilities included overseeing dyslexia identification/interventions, 504 services, as well as all tiered interventions for academics, behavioral and social-emotional learning. 

Paulette spent her last six years in the public school system working with the Texas Literacy Grant as a district primary literacy specialist. Working in conjunction with the Vaughn-Gross Center at the University of Texas, she provided a coaching model of professional development revolving around student data and individual teacher needs for twenty-one campuses in kindergarten through second grade. This model included direct professional development in the areas of evidence-based reading and written expression for teachers and campus coaches. This training was followed up by facilitating grade levels in setting goals based on student data, coaching, modeling, collaborative teaching, and classroom observations. 

Paulette received her bachelor’s degree in Special Education and Elementary Education. She went on to receive her master’s degree from Lamar University in Teacher Leadership with a specialization in Special Education. Paulette is a TPI-US certified inspector of teacher preparation programs.