Rebekah Shoaf

Rebekah Shoaf is a New York City-based author, educational consultant, and founder and owner of Boogie Down Books, a bookstore-without-walls® for kids, teens, families, and educators in the Bronx and beyond, and What If Schools™, an educational consultancy. Her first book, Educating with Passion and Purpose: Keep the Fire Going without Burning Out, will be published by Jossey-Bass in May 2023. Throughout her twenty-year career in education she has served as a high school English teacher, founding faculty member of a small high school for architecture and design, and Lead Teacher in New York City public schools; a university instructor at Fordham University and Drew University; and a Teacher Development Coach with the NYC Department of Education, where she coached middle and high school teachers throughout New York City in promoting rigorous, student-centered instruction. She continues to work with a variety of local and national clients to promote educational justice through transformative professional learning experiences as an instructional and leadership coach, professional development facilitator, and curriculum designer for both adolescent and adult learning. A Miami native, Rebekah is a lifelong bookworm, a product of public and independent schools, a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard University, an alum of the Chef's Training Program at the Natural Gourmet Institute, a marathon runner, the owner of a pink Vespa, and an aunt to six budding bibliophiles.