Natalie Vardabasso

Natalie Vardabasso is an educator, consultant, speaker, and author specializing in equitable assessment and grading practices and the use of storytelling as evidence of student learning. After working as a middle and high school humanities teacher in special education contexts, she served as an instructional coach and then as an assessment lead, where she guided a K–12 school through a multi-year transition to standards-based grading. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English literature from Simon Fraser University and a Bachelor of Education from the University of British Columbia.

Vardabasso is the co-author, with Tom Schimmer, of Rehumanizing Assessment: Gathering Evidence of Student Learning Through Storytelling (Transforming Assessment Through Storytelling), published in May 2025, which advocates for narrative-based approaches to assessment that honor student voice, identity, and growth. Beyond her writing, she has worked as a K–12 consulting coach and professional learning facilitator across North America, and she founded the Empowerment Ecosystem and produced and hosted the #EduCrush podcast to support educators in rethinking assessment and rehumanizing education.