Montserrat Garibay has been a dedicated educator and advocate for public education and labor rights for the past 25 years. Most recently, she served as the Assistant Deputy Secretary and Director of the Office of English Language Acquisition. Garibay also served as a Senior Advisor for Labor Relations in the Office of the Secretary at the U.S. Department of Education under the Biden-Harris Administration.

Born in Mexico City, Garibay migrated to the United States as an undocumented child. She became a U.S. Citizen two decades later. She earned a master’s degree in Education from the University of Texas at Austin and was a National Board Certified Teacher. 

Garibay’s career includes eight years as a bilingual pre-kindergarten teacher. She later became the Vice President for Certified Employees with Education Austin, a merged local affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, and the AFL-CIO. She also served as the Secretary-Treasurer of the Texas AFL-CIO. 

She now brings this wealth of experience and passion to her role as a board member of the National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE) and the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL)