Maria Paredes is dedicated to excellence and equity in family engagement. She works to tear down walls between home and school and helps educators and families join forces as genuine partners for learning. Her areas of expertise include family and community engagement, organizational development, needs assessments, and design of high-impact family engagement programs for state departments, districts, and schools.
In 2009, Paredes developed Academic Parent-Teacher Teams (APTT), a strengths-based model of family engagement designed to strengthen the capacity of teachers and families and transform family participation in their children’s education. This model has been adopted by over 2,000 schools throughout the nation and is the subject of multiple studies asserting the positive outcomes for students, families, and schools.
Paredes and her team have earned a national reputation for excellence in service, and they partner with state departments, districts, and schools to support program development, professional learning, and integration of effective family engagement practices into all areas of school improvement.
She regularly speaks at national conferences; her work is frequently featured in pioneering publications, including Partners in Education A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family-School Partnerships. She has authored several articles and briefs and coauthored Planning for Family Engagement in the Charter School Life Cycle: A Toolkit for School Leaders.
Paredes earned her EdD from Arizona State University in Leadership and Innovation, MEd from Arizona State University in Curriculum and Instruction, MA from the University of Wisconsin in Latin American Literature, and BA from the University of Wisconsin in Comparative Literature.