Rachel Tenney is a lifelong New Yorker and educator and is the founder of Robins & Roots, an educational LLC serving children and families in New York. Professionally they have been an early childhood educator since 2007, although would count years prior as a babysitter, after school wrangler, camp counselor, Child Life volunteer and Sunday School teacher as preparation too. While attending Macalester College (BA in History, Political Science and African Studies) they intended to focus on international development and to this end taught ESL to adults, interned at the United Nations Peacekeeping mission in Cyprus and did independent research about NGO’s in Durban, South Africa.  Upon graduation, recognizing a skill and passion for early childhood, they earned an MSEd from Bank Street College of Education, in Early Childhood General and Special Education in 2010. They hold NYS certification in general and special education (Birth-2nd grade). From 2007-2014 they worked as an assistant teacher and head teacher of two and three year olds at schools in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Since 2014 they have exclusively worked in Special Education. Their focus had been working with individual students as a Special Education Itinerant Teacher (SEIT), providing support for 3-5 year olds with Individualized Education Programs (IEP’s). It was through this experience that they developed the knowledge base to support families seeking services for their children and teachers supporting children with special rights, which makes up the bulk of their consulting work with Robins and Roots.