Maria Messer

Maria Messer is a dedicated leader in special education with over 20 years of experience supporting children most likely to fall through the cracks. Beginning her career at a residential treatment facility in Colorado, she worked closely with foster-care-involved youth and students with behavioral needs. Her trajectory quickly moved from classroom teaching to coaching teams on managing challenging behaviors, and ultimately to district-level leadership, guiding administrators and educators through the complexities of special education law, procedures, and policy implementation.

Currently serving as Director of Special Education at the Boulder Valley School District, a medium-sized district of approximately 30,000 students, Maria focuses on relationship-centered leadership, emphasizing guidance, mentorship, and collaboration over mere compliance. Her approach is informed not only by her professional expertise but also by her lived experience as the mother of two adopted children with exceptional needs. This dual perspective as both practitioner and parent enriches her work and informs her advocacy for leaders navigating uncertainty, grief, and the invisible demands of human-centered fields.

In addition to her administrative work, Maria is an accomplished writer and speaker. She is the author of Holding Both: Loving and Leading Without Certainty, a narrative leadership memoir exploring the challenges of holding multiple truths simultaneously in leadership and parenting. Through her essays on Substack and her public speaking engagements, she shares insights on resilience, purpose, and presence in complex systems, inspiring leaders across education, healthcare, and social services to lead with clarity, compassion, and courage—even when certainty is unavailable.

• University of Northern Colorado - M.Ed.