Kate Shands Haq has been a professional educator in the field of elementary school teaching since 1985. She is a graduate of Buffalo State College and the State University of Buffalo, where she received a Masters degree in Early Childhood Education in 1991. Kate has taught grades Kindergarten, second, third, fourth, and fifth. She has worked as a reading specialist and as the Response to Intervention coordinator and coach for her district.

The majority of her years have been spent in a rural school district on the outskirts of Buffalo, but she is a long time city of Buffalo resident. Kate and her husband have three sons, two of whom graduated from Buffalo Public Schools, and their youngest is presently in tenth grade at a criterion school in Buffalo.

Kate has been politically active since college and represented her local teachers' union in Albany for many years. She is currently the secretary of the Buffalo Parent Teacher Organization. Kate resigned her position as a fifth grade teacher in June of 2014 and is pursuing her PhD in Critical Literacy at SUNY Buffalo as a full-time student