Nancy speaking at a conference she organized in partnership with the White House as a member of President Obama’s Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics
Nancy Navarro was elected to represent District 4 on the Montgomery County Council in a special election in May 2009 and re-elected in the general election in November 2010 and 2014. Montgomery County is the largest jurisdiction in Maryland, with over 1 million residents and a budget of over $5 billion. Nancy is the first Latina member of the Council.
She served as Council President in 2013 and Council Vice President the year before. Since December 2010, she has chaired the Government Operations and Fiscal Policy (GO) Committee, and served on the Health and Human Services Committee until 2013 when she began serving on the Education Committee. Her office has led the groundbreaking Latino Civic Project, an effort to engage underrepresented residents in the civic process.
In October 2011, President Barack Obama appointed Nancy as a member of the President’s Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics, where she serves on the Early Childhood Education Committee.
Prior to joining the Council, Nancy was a member of the Montgomery County Board of Education, where she served two consecutive terms as the Board’s President. She was first appointed to the Board of Education in October 2004 to fill a vacant seat. On November 2006, she was elected to a full four-year term. Nancy chaired the Communications and Public Engagement Committee, and was a member of the Board’s Strategic Planning Committee. During her term as President, Nancy created an award winning Translation Unit that provides simultaneous translation for parents who do not speak English.
Nancy graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Missouri-Columbia. During the summers of 2007 and 2008, she participated in the Public Education Leadership Project (PELP) at Harvard University, a dynamic professional development program whose mission is to improve the management and leadership competencies of public school leaders in order to drive greater educational outcomes. The Montgomery County Public Schools’ team focused on race, poverty and the academic achievement gap.
Nancy has served in a number of volunteer leadership roles. Currently, she sits on the board of directors of The Metropolitan Council of Governments, and the Ana G. Mendez Advisory Board. She served on the Board of Directors of The Reginald S. Lourie Center for Infants and Young Children. She is a graduate of IMPACT Silver Spring 2001 Leadership Program, and Leadership Montgomery Class of 2009. She was PTSA co-president; chair of the Youth, Schools, and Childcare Work Group of the Long Branch Revitalization Task Force; co-founder of the Montgomery County Non-Profit Village; member of the Montgomery County Gang Prevention Task Force; member of the National Child Care Action Campaign; Member of the Advisory Committee for the Washington Area Foundation Portrait Project. She also served as a bilingual classroom parent volunteer.
Nancy has received numerous awards and recognitions, including: the Maryland State Department of Education’s Women Who Dare Leadership Award; the U.S. Hispanic Youth Entrepreneur Education’s Hispanic Hero Award; the 2009 and 2013 Maryland’s Top 100 Women Award; the Mid-Atlantic Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s 2010 Elected Local Government Official of the Year Award, the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Montgomery County’s Leadership Award; the Hispanic Democratic Club of Montgomery County’s Poder con Ganas Award; the Montgomery County Business and Professional Women Association’s Women of Achievement 2007 Award; the Community Teachers Institute’s Heart of the Community Award; the Liberty’s Promise John Greeley Award; and the Center for Nonprofit Advancement 2016 Phyllis Campbell Newsome Public Policy Leadership Award.
Before entering public office, Nancy co-founded a non-profit, community-based organization with a mission to assist the economic and educational development of Latino and other immigrant communities. School readiness, healthy family development, and academic achievement were the primary focus of the organization.
She was born in Caracas, Venezuela and has lived in Montgomery County for more than two decades with her husband, Reginald, and two daughters, Anais and Isabel.