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Jeffrey Austin serves as a county-level literacy consultant in Southeast Michigan, working with school leaders, instructional coaches, teachers, students, and communities to support equitable, accessible literacy instruction, especially in secondary schools.  

Jeffrey is also the co-founder and co-facilitator of an environmental justice and community health initiative called the Growing Researchers of Environmental Equity Network (G.R.E.E.N.), which focuses on supporting student and teachers in place-based stewardship and local environmental advocacy in Southeast Michigan.

Jeffrey’s work often focuses on:

  • Supporting disciplinary literacy learning for teachers, leaders, coaches, and students,
  • Engaging teams in curriculum audits, including equity audits,
  • Enhancing opportunities for abundant and meaningful reading and writing,
  • Growing project, problem, and place-based learning,
  • Rethinking grading and assessment practices for equity, and
  • Building accessible learning spaces with students, teachers, and caregivers.

Before becoming a consultant in March 2022, Jeffrey spent over 16 years in various roles, including instructional coach, high school writing center director, literary magazine advisor, high school department chair, and middle school and high school ELA and Social Studies teacher.

Jeffrey was presented the Commendable Teacher Award in 2016 by the Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti Regional Chamber, and he was one of seven teachers in the State of Michigan named to the new Innovative Educator Corps (IEC) in 2018 for his and his students’ work with the youth-driven Skyline Writing Center.  The Writing Center was awarded the 2015 Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti Regional Chamber Exemplary Educational Endeavor Award and the 2015 Michigan Association of School Boards Educational Excellence Award.

To learn more about Jeffrey, visit the “About Jeffrey” page, to see his recent professional presentations see the “Jeffrey’s Presentations” page, and to see his thoughts about literacy practice and pedagogies in the secondary classroom, visit “Jeffrey’s Blog.”