More than two decades in classrooms, schools, and systems. Every rung of the ladder. All in service of one goal: equipping students for what lies ahead.
Students are at the center of Maggie's work. Her teachers shaped her approach. Her education connects practice with theory and systems.
Maggie's path in education began in the classroom and spans more than twenty years across teaching, coaching, and school leadership. But the foundation of her work was formed long before that, in the classrooms where she first experienced what great teaching looks like.
In fourth grade, Sister Anita ran a classroom grounded in high expectations, structure, and care, holding students to a high standard and supporting them in meeting it. That combination left a lasting impression: students rise to the expectations set for them, and a great teacher can change the trajectory of a child's life.
A few years later, Miss Russell expanded that understanding of what learning could be. Her classroom brought together literature, history, philosophy, and geography, not as separate subjects, but as a connected way of understanding the world. It was rigorous, but also alive with curiosity and meaning. Students did not just learn content; they learned how to think.
Those experiences continue to shape Maggie's work today. She has spent more than two decades working to create that same kind of learning environment for students, and to build the systems that enable more teachers to do it well at scale. Her practice is grounded in experience and strengthened through continued study, including graduate degrees in education and leadership and advanced programs at Harvard Graduate School of Education focused on evidence-based practice and educational leadership.
"Students rise to meet the expectations set for them. My job has always been to make sure those expectations are set high enough, and that the system around them makes it possible to get there."
— Maggie MarschnerMaggie has not observed education from a distance. She has worked every layer of it, from the first day in a Title I classroom to state-level policy. Here is the arc of more than two decades of work.
Maggie started on the floor. Not the administrative floor, the classroom floor, in Title I schools in Clark County, Nevada, the fourth largest school district in the country. These were high-need schools serving students whose families had the fewest resources and the greatest obstacles. During this period she also worked as a Title I literacy tutor, providing one-on-one reading intervention to students who were falling behind grade level. These years were the foundation of everything. She learned what it actually takes to reach a student who has every reason not to trust that school will work for them. In 2010, her peers and district recognized that work with the Teacher of the Year award.
Moving from the classroom into an intervention specialist role, Maggie worked with English Language Learners and students significantly behind in literacy. This work demanded a different set of skills: understanding how language acquisition actually happens, how to differentiate instruction without lowering expectations, and how to build a path to grade-level proficiency for students who were years behind. The insight she carried out of this role has shaped every leadership decision since: if the system is not built to reach its hardest-to-serve students, the system is not working.
Maggie was elevated to district-level work as a project facilitator, operating across multiple schools within one of the most complex urban school systems in the country. For the first time, she was seeing the system from above the site level, understanding how decisions made in a district office ripple down into classrooms and what it takes to move a system at scale rather than school by school. It was here that she began developing the systems thinking that would define her approach to school turnaround work.
Maggie's career reached the state level when Governor Brian Sandoval appointed her as Co-Chair of Nevada's Teachers and Leaders Council, a statewide body charged with developing educator evaluation policy from the classroom teacher level to the paraeducator level, built collaboratively with union representatives, district superintendents, and the governor's office. This was not an advisory role in name only. It produced real policy, shaped by practitioners who understood what actually happens when evaluation systems are designed without the people they govern. Simultaneously, she was working as a full-time instructional coach, converting department heads into coaching roles and building the professional development structures that would fuel the Valley High turnaround below. In 2016 she presented Valley's ELL achievement results at the College Board's national conference.
Maggie moved into school administration, serving as both assistant principal and principal across elementary and secondary settings, bringing together everything she had built over the prior fifteen years. Running a school requires a different kind of capacity than any single role that precedes it: budget authority, personnel decisions, culture setting, family relations, safety, curriculum alignment, and accountability to a board and community, all at once, every day. She received the Teachers of Teachers Award in 2020, recognized by peers for the outsized impact she had on the educators around her. During this period she also maintained private-sector work supporting school programs, homeschooling families, and students with special education and literacy needs, keeping a direct connection to the families her public work was built to serve.
Maggie has lectured at the university level and presented at national conferences on instructional practice, student well-being, technology policy, and systems change. Her speaking engagements include the UDL-IRN International Summit, the CAST UDL Symposium, the SITE Conference on technology and adolescent development, the Inclusion Collaborative Conference, and the CSEA Annual Paraeducator Conference. She has also conducted cross-state school observation work in California, Texas, and Florida, giving her a national perspective on what is working in American public education and what is not.
Clark County School District · 2014–2019
Maggie led district-level efforts as a project facilitator supporting the full school transformation at Valley High School, one of Nevada's most challenged campuses.
Clark County School District recognition for classroom excellence and student outcomes in a high-need Title I environment.
Appointed by Governor Brian Sandoval. Led statewide educator evaluation policy development in collaboration with unions, superintendents, and the governor's office.
Recognized for exceptional impact on the professional growth of fellow educators across school and district settings.
Active member and advocate within the professional network for Latino educational leaders.
Presented at College Board, UDL-IRN International Summit, CAST UDL Symposium, SITE Conference, Inclusion Collaborative Conference, and CSEA Paraeducator Conference.
Active in higher education and cross-state school observation in California, Texas, and Florida, bringing a national lens to local challenges in Ventura County.
Maggie has pursued formal education and professional development continuously alongside her classroom and leadership work, connecting theory to practice at every stage.
A child who cannot read proficiently by third grade faces an uphill battle for the rest of their academic life. A student who leaves eighth grade without foundational math skills is already behind for high school and beyond. Maggie will prioritize county-wide focus on literacy and math outcomes, holding districts accountable to the data and ensuring intervention resources reach students who need them before it is too late.
The County Superintendent has real oversight authority. Maggie will use it, not to micromanage local districts, but to ensure school boards are functioning, finances are sound, and families are being heard. Parents and local communities should call the shots in their schools. Maggie's job is to make sure they have the power and the information to do that.
With enrollment declining and spending rising, fiscal responsibility is an obligation the County Superintendent owes every taxpayer, whether or not they have children in public schools. Maggie will ensure every dollar is accounted for, help districts eliminate redundant programs that do not demonstrate student benefit, and keep funding where it belongs: in classrooms, not administrative overhead.
Ventura County schools do not need another trend-driven program pushed from the county office. They need teachers who are well-supported, site leaders who have real authority, and a county office that removes obstacles rather than creating new ones. Maggie will invest in people, not programs, and measure success by what students can actually do.
Decisions about curriculum and school operations belong closest to students, with parents, teachers, and local boards driving the direction. Maggie will require transparency on what is being taught and how public dollars are spent, so families have the information they need to engage and so communities can hold their schools accountable in the ways that matter most to them.
From students with disabilities to English learners to students living in poverty, the measure of a school system is how it serves its most vulnerable students. Maggie has spent her career working with the students most systems overlook. She will build county-wide systems that include every student from the start, not as an afterthought.
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