Tamara Roberta Jackson

Dr. Jackson is a compassionate and student-oriented instructor in early care and education. She is our resident expert in special education, family and community engagement, equity and diversity. As a retired Director of Special Education for the school district in La Canada and a part-time consultant in the Special Education Department in the Inglewood Unified School District,  Dr. Jackson brings on-the-ground, practical experience of direct service and service systems for families, children, schools and the community as a whole. Her successes in special education and with families come from a deeply reflective, social justice mission that schools are obligated to meet equity and multi-cultural goals, and that schools must reach families, rather than the other way around.

Her career began with an interest in prenatal drug exposure and the impact of family labelling, which led to her unique lens of seeing the realities in family experiences, particularly families with a neuro-atypical child.

Dr. Jackson’s course on The Young Child in the Family and Community is popular with students, because Dr. Jackson approaches teacher preparation through hearing student experiences and linking student observations and reflections to child development content.