Janet N.Y. Zarchen began her career as a teacher in multilingual classrooms in California and continued to teach across the grades in Guadalajara, Mexico; New Jersey; and Connecticut. She worked as an instructional designer for a major publishing company and at the University of Connecticut before supporting schools and districts as an educational consultant for the State Education Resource Center (SERC) in Connecticut. In this role, she facilitated the development of curriculum, district and school equity plans, school improvement plans, and multi-tiered systems of support. For several years, she managed the equity grant which supported SERC’s annual racial equity conference, equity programming for school districts, and internal capacity building. She also provided coaching and training to educators on topics including literacy, curriculum and instruction, support for multilingual learners, and diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. These topics are also her areas of focus, passion, and study which she now brings to her work as an independent consultant and the founder of Learning Layers, LLC. Other areas of interest are researching her family’s Japanese American history and finding the best hot fudge sundae in the country. Janet lives in Connecticut with her partner Lou, their dogs and cats, and the neighborhood bears.