Gwen Jackson was born in Brooklyn, raised in Queens, and moved to Hempstead over 37 years ago. She is a wife, mother and educator.

After graduating from Andrew Jackson High School in Queens, Ms. Jackson attended Ithaca College, receiving a bachelor’s degree in Speech Pathology and Audiology. Her graduate work was done at Smith College, where she received a master’s degree in Deaf Education.

Upon graduating from Smith College, Ms. Jackson got her first and only job with Nassau BOCES Program for the Hearing Impaired. She was the first African American Teacher of the Deaf hired by BOCES. She worked as a classroom, infant, itinerant and supervising teacher. She retired after 32 years of service.

Knowing that one day she wanted to own and operate an Early Childhood Center,
Ms. Jackson continued her studies at Bank Street College, accumulating numerous credits in Early Childhood Education. Later, she attended C.W. Post and received a degree in Administration.

Ms. Jackson grew up believing in the saying, “God bless the child that’s has his own”. So, in 2003, along with her best friend, Ann Paczkowski, she founded Florosa, Inc, an afterschool homework center, named in memory of her two sisters Florence and Rosa. In order to ensure that no child was denied academic support due to financial hardship, she established Florosa Learning Center, the not-for-profit arm of Florosa, Inc.

From 2015-2018, Ms. Jackson served as a Trustee on the Hempstead School Board. For two of those years as Vice-President as well as the Audit Committee Chairperson.  

Ms. Jackson is committed to ensuring that every child receives a quality education, especially those most at risk.

Ms. Jackson loves to read. She served on the board of the Nassau Reading Council for over a decade. It is her hope that every child develops a love for reading. But more importantly, she wants to make sure every child is reading on grade level by the 3rd grade. Hopefully, this will put a crack in the school to prison pipeline.

Presently, Ms. Jackson works with toddlers diagnosed on the Spectrum