Elementary Section Steering Committee - National Council of Teachers of English

Elementary Section Steering Committee

The Elementary Section Steering Committee (ESSC) members are elected each year to a four-year term. The Chair is elected from within the ESSC for a two-year term and serves on the NCTE Executive Committee representing the interests of the elementary membership.

Learn more about the ESSC Member Activities Responsibilities.

Nancy Valdez-Gainer

Texas State University
Chair, 2022-2024
2021–2025

Laura Ascenzi-Moreno

Brooklyn College
Brooklyn, NY
2022-2026

Tracey Flores

University of Texas
2020–2024

Jennipher Frazier

University of South Carolina
2023–2027

Valente' Gibson

Richland School District
Columbia, SC
2020–2024

Wanda Jaggers

JB Atkinson Academy, Louisville, KY
2021–2025

Islah Tauheed

Bronx, NY
2023–2027

Joanna Wong

California State University, Monterey Bay
2022-2026

Past ESSC Members

Questions or comments for the Steering Committee can be emailed to elementary@ncte.org

 

Mission Statement

The Elementary Section Steering Committee of NCTE is committed to the pursuit of justice and equity.  We believe that in an open democratic society we cannot argue for democracy and humanity unless we create for our children a more just and caring world.  To this end we are dedicated to the support and development of emancipatory pedagogies that counter official policies and mandates that narrow the possibilities for the teaching of the language arts in public schools.  We believe that it is essential that we resist any attempt that is made to separate school based language arts programs from the socio-cultural realities of children’s everyday lives.  Our task is to support the work of teachers as they work closely with their students and their families to build classrooms where everyone has an opportunity to participate in the conversation with a renewed consciousness of worth and possibility of their own language use and the literacies that they share.

—ESSC, January 2017