Heidi Piatek
Heidi Piatek is a Research Associate at RMC, providing technical assistance and evaluation to the Region 7 Comprehensive Center. She formerly served the National Association for the Education of Young Children, assessing early childhood programs throughout the country for over 10 years. Previously, she served on the Wisconsin Reading Acquisition Program in the Department of Speech Language Pathology at Marquette University, assessing bilingual Head Start classrooms and children and coaching teachers on developmental linguistic progress methods. She has been involved in numerous early childhood research projects, including the Study of the Program for Infant Care and HSIS, as well as multiple phases of longitudinal studies, such as FACES, HSIS, and ECLS-B.
Heidi taught elementary Spanish and secondary ESL and has also served the corporate culture and language solutions community as an Intercultural Trainer. With a focus on strengthening cultural competencies in education and the quality of care in classrooms at all levels, Heidi is committed to finding solutions to challenges that result in improved educational outcomes across languages and cultures.
EDUCATION: M.A. in English Linguistics from University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee; B.A. in Spanish Education from University of Wisconsin – LaCrosse; TESOL Certification and K-12 Certifications in ESL and Spanish
AREAS OF EXPERTISE: Program Assessment and Evaluation; Classroom Observation; Data Collection Reliability; Quality Improvement; Early Childhood Education; Cultural Studies; ESL Instruction