Suzanne Bouffard
Senior Vice President, Communications & Publications
Suzanne Bouffard is senior vice president of communications and publications at Learning Forward. She is the editor of The Learning Professional, Learning Forward’s flagship publication. She also contributes to the Learning Forward blog and webinars. With a background in child development, she has a passion for making research and best practices accessible to educators, policymakers, and families. She has written for many national publications including The New York Times and the Atlantic, and previously worked as a writer and researcher at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She has a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Duke University and a B.A. from Wesleyan University. She loves working with authors to help them develop their ideas and voices for publication.
All Articles
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The Learning Professional’s top 10 articles of 2021
The articles that were most popular with readers of The Learning Professional in 2021 focused on topics of ongoing importance but acute need: educators’ well-being and social and emotional (SEL) skills, racial equity, and curriculum support. An urgent need for transformation is a thread that runs through these and many […] -
Equity is an ongoing journey that challenges us all
When guest editor Tanji Reed Marshall and I began working on this year’s equity spotlight issues (which include the June 2021 issue on Action for Racial Equity), we didn’t know that conversations about educational equity would take center stage during school board meetings and in mass media. But we did […] -
‘Equity work is not a zero-sum game’
Tauheedah Baker-Jones is Atlanta Public Schools’ first chief equity and social justice officer. She developed and now oversees the district’s Center for Equity and Social Justice and the district’s equity framework. She shared some of her experiences and learnings, as well as reflections on how districts can enable equity officers […] -
Honoring history, cultivating genius
Gholnecsar (Gholdy) Muhammad is a leading voice for equity, anti-racism, and culturally and historically responsive teaching. A former teacher and school district curriculum director, she now researches and consults with school, district, and state leaders to implement culturally and historically responsive teaching. Her framework of historically responsive literacy is outlined […] -
Leadership shines a light in dark times
When I told a colleague we were focusing our fall issue of The Learning Professional on how leaders can thrive in stressful times, she astutely asked, “When is working in schools not stressful?” Constant stress notwithstanding, she recognized what we all do: School and system leadership is especially challenging right […] -
The need for SEL is greater than ever
In 2018, my first editor’s column in The Learning Professional made the case for integrating social and emotional learning (SEL) into professional learning in more explicit and visible ways. Three years and multiple global crises later, the need is more urgent than ever, and the justification for ignoring it in […] -
To make SEL stick, align school and out-of-school time
For 20 years, Prime Time Palm Beach County, a nonprofit organization in Florida, has supported local out-of-school time programs with professional learning, capacity building, and other resources. One of the organization’s most popular and longest-running professional learning offerings is called Bringing Yourself to Work, which helps out-of-school time practitioners develop […] -
Sparking dialogue that leads to action
Equity is a focus in every issue of The Learning Professional and in all of Learning Forward’s work. In recognition of the urgency of this work, in 2021 we are devoting two full issues to how educators can leverage professional learning to achieve equity for all students, starting with this issue on […] -
Investing in early learning benefits us all
Little children are a big deal for schools today. Mounting evidence about the benefits of early childhood education has motivated thousands of school districts to offer pre-K. Research on the foundations of literacy has spurred greater identification of reading disorders in kindergarten. And knowledge about how students develop over time […] -
Coaches shape early learning and beyond
In 2016-17, I spent many hours with the educators and staff of Boston Public Schools’ early childhood program, including the Eliot K-8 Innovation School in Boston’s historic North End neighborhood. The Eliot had made a remarkable turnaround over a 10-year period — a transformation that principal Traci Griffith attributed, in […]
