Marlies Spanjaard

Marlies Spanjaard is an adjunct instructor in juvenile justice & youth advocacy at Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development. She is the director of education advocacy for the Youth Advocacy Division of the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the statewide public defender agency in Massachusetts. In this role, Ms. Spanjaard leads the EdLaw Project, which provides education advocacy to court-involved children and youth across the state and technical assistance and training on student rights to court-appointed attorneys representing children and youth. Ms. Spanjaard joined the EdLaw Project in 2001 and gained valuable experience first working as a staff attorney directly representing students in school disciplinary hearings, special education team meetings, and administrative hearings before the Bureau of Special Education Appeals before becoming the director in 2008.

As the foremost expert on the intersection of juvenile justice and education rights in Massachusetts she regularly presents to audiences of parents, youth workers, students, and lawyers in the Commonwealth and across the country. She is also the president and CEO of the Youth Advocacy Foundation (YAF), a 501(c)(3) organization attached to the state public defender office whose mission is to shut down the school-to-prison pipeline by ensuring that all court-involved kids have access to expert education advocacy.