Jenna Weglarz-Ward

Dr. Jenna Weglarz-Ward has spent the past 26 years as an educator in a variety of settings including early care and education, therapeutic recreation, early childhood special education, and early literacy programs. Throughout these experiences, she has grounded her practice and advocacy in family-centered practices that focus on partnering with families to support their children’s learning and development and educational systems. To do this, she finds ways to bring family voices to the table in all aspects of education—from individual family service plans or child education programs to school systems to state policy decisions. Most importantly, Dr. Weglarz-Ward is a parent to four fantastically joyful and funny children and has experienced services from the neonatal intensive unit through navigating adult disability services across the family. They maintain a neurodiverse-affirming household.

Currently, Dr. Weglarz-Ward is an associate professor in early childhood/special education at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and research coordinator at the Lynn Bennett Early Childhood Education Center. She serves as the program coordinator for undergraduate and master’s degrees in early childhood and early childhood special education. Her scholarship focuses on the inclusion of young children with disabilities in community settings, specifically child care, through family-centered practices and professional learning with over 40 publications and 100 national presentations. She serves as the principal investigator for projects centered around supporting professionals’ skills in equity and inclusion and has been awarded over $4 mil in external funding to support work. She has been a consultant for the U.S. Office of Child Care to support the collaboration between IDEA Part C and state child care programs, and Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation to lead a workgroup on children with disabilities in child care. She serves on Nevada early childhood-related councils including the Nevada Pyramid Partnership, Nevada Part C Interagency Coordinating Council (chair), and the Nevada Early Childhood Advocacy Council and national organizations including the Division for Early Childhood of the Council for Exceptional Children (serving as past-president) and the National Association for the Education of Young Children. She was formerly a Fred Rogers Inquiry Educator Fellow in which she studied how Fred Rogers taught us about disability. She was also a former National Center on Pyramid Model Innovations Fellow and U.S. Office of Special Education Program Intern. She completed her PhD at the University of Illinois in special education with a focus on early intervention/early childhood special education.