Jessie’s Biography: Advocate, Educator, Volunteer

  • Lexington resident for 16 years
  • School Committee Member since 2009
  • Town Meeting Member, Precinct 8 since 2006
  • Lexington Public School Volunteer since 2001
  • Coach for Odyssey of the Mind / Destination Imagination since 2002
  • Town-Wide Co-Coordinator Destination Imagination since 2008
  • Profession:  Lawyer (Cornell Law ’93)

Jessie Steigerwald’s professional career has centered around two life-long passions:  advocacy and education.

During her first term, Jessie has focussed on improving accountability and transparency, supported partnerships between parents and schools, encouraged community engagement with our schools, and strived to find creative ways to solve problems.

As a lawyer, Jessie helped people who could not afford legal representation, including clients of Greater Boston Elderly Legal Services, where she conducted outreach to nursing home residents. Jessie later worked as an administrator at Harvard University, training and supporting over 400 students who volunteered in Cambridge public schools as tutors and mentors. Since 1998, Jessie has worked at home. Her projects have included creating and licensing educational resources for children to inspire creativity and early literacy in preschoolers, now at butterflyschool.net. She has been a volunteer in the Lexington public schools for more than ten years.

Originally from Staten Island, New York, Jessie’s first school setting was a cooperative daycare center where her mother, Corinne, taught, and eventually directed the school. Jessie attended P.S. 54 in Staten Island until third grade.  Jessie and her mother moved to Stamford, Connecticut, where Jessie attended public schools through her graduation from Westhill High School.  She then studied American History and Visual & Environmental Studies at Harvard College and graduated from Cornell Law School with a concentration in Advocacy in 1993.

Jessie credits her mother, extended family and the exceptional teachers who nurtured her interest in community service and advocacy.