Speaker Biographies Michelle Johnson Armstrong has been with the US Department of Education for more than 15 years. She has managed and worked on several discretionary grant programs focusing on school choice, the arts, and teachers’ professional development. She brings expertise on program analysis and evaluation focused on evidence-based community efforts for planning and implementation and educational outcomes affecting school-age children. Before coming to the US Department of Education, Armstrong worked on evidence-based evaluation projects in Ithaca, New York, while completing her graduate studies at Cornell University. Melodie Baker is gaining attention as one of the nation’s most promising leaders. Shortly after starting her own independent research-based evaluation firm, Q&A STATS LLC, this past February she was awarded the contract to lead New York state’s First 1,000 Days Medicaid reform efforts in partnership with the Rockefeller Institute for Government and the Pritzker Foundation. Baker is also the director of education at the United Way of Buffalo and Erie County, cochair of the United Way Community Schools Learning Community, cochair of RaisingNY, and chair of the Erie-Niagara Birth to 8 Coalition. In 2014, she cofounded the Charter School of Inquiry, the first inquiry-based school in Western New York. Baker has spent the last 14 years of her career working to expand opportunities for the most vulnerable and underserved people. She has demonstrated her work on national platforms and was the keynote speaker for the US Department of Education’s National Promise Neighborhoods Conference in Washington, DC, in October 2018. Baker has received numerous recognitions, including Buffalo Niagara Partnership’s 2017 Athena Young Professional Leadership Award and Nasdaq and EverFi’s Education Innovation Award. In 2014, Baker was named the John R. Oishei Foundation change agent for her work as a cofounder of the Charter School of Inquiry. Baker earned a bachelor’s degree in public relations from Buffalo State College and a master’s degree in executive leadership and change from Daemen College. Baker recently returned to higher education to pursue a doctoral degree in educational leadership and quantitative methods at the University at Buffalo. Ben Birkby serves as a licensed psychologist and evaluation researcher with REACH. He holds a doctoral degree in clinical psychology from Spalding University and a license to practice psychology from the Kentucky Board of Examiners of Psychology, as well as the health service provider endorsement. A long-time REACH employee, Birkby has held several positions and worked in various capacities over his 13 years at the organization. Kristin Blagg is a research associate in the Center on Education Data and Policy at the Urban Institute. Her research focuses on K–12 and postsecondary education. Blagg is also pursuing a doctoral degree in public policy and public administration at the George Washington University.

Mary Bogle is a principal research associate in the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center at the Urban Institute. Her research focuses on policies and place-based interventions that help low-income parents surmount economic, equity, and mental health challenges. Anthea Brady, data management and data quality expert at AEM Corporation, provides technical assistance to states with the Center for the Integration of IDEA Data (CIID) and National Center on Educational Outcomes. She has over 14 years’ experience working with states, districts, and grantees to design, provide technical assistance for, and manage implementation of statewide technology. Recently, she has supported two states with CIID’s Generate tool by providing project management and guidance on best practices for data management and relationship building within the state for the integration and

reporting of IDEA Part B data. Brady has deep expertise in data management, working with the development and implementation of Common Education Data Standards in state data systems, supporting state education agencies in integrating and aligning special education data, and identifying and managing the flow of data through state systems. Brady has provided technical assistance to practitioners on implementing strategies for supporting students with disabilities in the classroom and to state education agencies on implementing response to intervention (RTI) in local education agencies, including strategies for implementing and scaling up RTI. Her engagement with students with disabilities includes a deep understanding of special education data, including IDEA Part B data requirements and IEP data. Dr. Rosa Briceno is a consultant/coach facilitator, with many years of experience working as a practitioner and technical assistance provider with programs that seek to strengthen school-family connections, promote family engagement, develop resident leadership, and foster civic participation in racially and culturally diverse settings. Briceno recently retired from Arlington Public Schools, where she was the family and community engagement specialist in the Department of Instruction. Before that, she led Project Interaction, which developed programs and strategies to promote family engagement in a highly culturally diverse school community, including supporting student learning, strengthening capacity of families as advocates and leaders, and creating a welcoming and inclusive learning community. Before her work in Arlington Public Schools, Briceno was a senior associate at the Center for the Study of Social Policy, where she led technical assistance and training, including helping develop a curriculum for resident-led results-based facilitation. She earned her doctoral degree in international development education from Stanford University. Frank T. Brogan serves as the assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education at the US Department of Education. He was confirmed by the US Senate in June 2018, after being nominated by President Trump in December 2017. Brogan most recently served as chancellor of Pennsylvania's public universities. He began his career as a fifth-grade teacher in Martin County, Florida, and later served as a dean of students, assistant principal, principal, and superintendent before being elected Florida's commissioner of education in 1994. Brogan continued his advocacy for public education when he was elected to serve as lieutenant governor of Florida in 1998 and 2002. After five years in that role, he was named president of Florida Atlantic University, a position he held until 2009, when he was selected to serve as chancellor of Florida's public universities. Brogan was the first member of his family to attend college, earning a bachelor's degree in education magna cum laude from the University of Cincinnati and a master's degree in education from Florida Atlantic University.

Stanley Celestine Jr. is a nationally recognized social entrepreneur, nonprofit leader, and policymaker, despite being just 20 years old. He currently serves as the executive director of The Forum for Opportunity Youth (FOY), a nonprofit that aims to improve the lives and outcomes of disconnected youth in Louisiana. Before launching FOY, Celestine worked in both macro-level and direct-service settings, bringing educational opportunities and critical developmental support to young people, particularly those with the greatest needs and least resources. A thought leader and passionate advocate for education reform, Celestine is an elected member of the Avoyelles Parish School Board and founding member of Red River Charter Academy. He is currently pursuing his bachelor’s degree in sociology at McNeese State University and plans to earn his doctoral degree from Southern University. Janevette Cole is a community resident engagement specialist and the government relations representative for Hayward Promise Neighborhoods. Cole has enveloped leadership in her community, shedding light on the attributes of Hayward and addressing social and economic issues by serving as a board member for Eden Youth and Family Center, Hayward Collegiate, and the South Hayward Collaboration and as an ambassador for Saint Rose Hospital. Liz Cortez, associate director of Mission Promise Neighborhood, works with community partners to address the holistic needs of children to ensure they succeed academically and that families are financially stable. Previously, she worked in various roles to strengthen community partnerships and increase family engagement and leadership development opportunities in early care and education settings such as Early Head Start and Head Start. Patrick A. Corvington joined DC School Reform Now as interim executive director in September 2018. Before this role, Corvington was a senior fellow for the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading and served in President Obama’s administration as the chief executive officer of the Corporation for National and Community Service. Corvington also served as a senior vice president with Habitat for Humanity International, where he created a management and deployment infrastructure for the more than 1 million volunteers. Corvington served as senior associate at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, where he engaged directly with some of the top social innovation intermediaries in the nonprofit sector, including Venture Philanthropy Partners

and Echoing Green. He has coauthored publications such as Ready to Lead? Next Generation Leaders Speak Out and Next Shift: Beyond the Nonprofit Leadership Crisis. He has also served as a research associate at the Urban Institute, where he conducted housing policy research and worked to build the capacity of nonprofit organizations in Russia. He has worked as a patient advocate in a community-based HIV/AIDS clinic, traveled the east coast migrant stream as a case manager for Haitian migrant workers, and volunteered his time working in the infirmary of a shelter for homeless people. Corvington has served on the boards of directors for Echoing Green, the Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers, the Nonprofit Workforce Coalition, the National Conference on Citizenship, and the Takoma Children’s School. Sean Cottrell, data privacy and data governance expert at AEM Corporation, is an expert on data privacy issues related to integrated data systems that contain educational data. He provides technical assistance to states and education stakeholders as a member of the Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems grant program support team and the Privacy Technical Assistance Center. In his work, he has provided guidance and direction to states seeking to enhance their use of educational data in accordance with various federal and state privacy laws. Cottrell addresses issues such as stakeholder engagement, sustainability, data governance, system design, transparency, and research and evaluation data use. Previously, Cottrell served as the data governance coordinator and privacy officer for the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction and the interagency governance lead for Wisconsin’s Early Childhood Integrated Data System. In this role, he implemented policy, standardized and streamlined data sharing practices, and created a culture of responsible data use. Vivian Crouch is an indirect cost negotiator in the Indirect Cost Division at the US Department of Labor. Crouch is a KPMG alumnus with professional experience in auditing, consulting, and taxation. She holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Kentucky and a master’s in taxation from the University of Central Florida. Josh Davis, vice president of external affairs at StriveTogether, provides leadership and strategy for the organization’s communication and marketing, development and fundraising, and policy, advocacy, and mobilization work. Before StriveTogether, Davis was vice president of external affairs for the Delta Health Alliance, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting health and education initiatives across the 18-county Mississippi Delta region. Sharon Deich is vice president of FourPoint Education Partners, where she focuses on expanded learning, education financing issues, and change management. Deich has directed projects that include afterschool systems building, financial analyses for school districts looking to reallocate resources toward high-priority areas, and assisting nonprofits with strategic planning and implementing sustainability strategies. Her work builds on two decades of experience in the nonprofit sector that includes research, policy analysis, and technical assistance. She works with federal agencies, state government leaders, city officials, foundation initiative leaders, and nonprofit organizations on issues related to early care, K–12 education, afterschool programming, and related education reform efforts. From 1997 to 2007, Deich served as an associate director for the Finance Project, where she authored numerous briefs and reports on financing human services programs and provided technical assistance and expert facilitation to organizations looking to scale and sustain promising initiatives. Before that, Deich spent 15 years researching and evaluating programs that support low-income children and families. Her prior experience includes work for the American Institutes for Research, where she worked closely with the Office of Head Start to revise performance standards and the training and technical assistance system. She also spent six years working at the Urban Institute, where she was a contributing researcher and author for the National Child Care Study. Deich earned her bachelor’s degree in economics from the State University of New York at Albany and earned her master’s degree in public policy from the University of Michigan. Amanda Delabar is the principal of Harriet Tubman Elementary School (Tubman), which serves a diverse, high-needs community in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of Washington, DC. Tubman is a DC public school serving students in pre-k 3 through 5th grade. Delabar has worked in DC public schools for 11 years and has spent 7 of those as Tubman’s principal. Tubman has worked for the past six years to operate using trauma-informed practices, which has transformed the school and is making a difference in the community. Previously, Delabar was a teacher for both traditional public schools and the Knowledge Is Power Program, an instructional coach, and an English as a second or foreign language coordinator in Texas. Delabar studied education policy and management at Harvard and attended the University of Missouri for her undergraduate studies in political science and communications. Candice Dias leads all data aspects for the Camden Promise Neighborhood. She directs the Data Governance Board, which provides oversight of the metrics and outcomes for the five-year initiative to drive sustainable systems and policy change. Dias has extensive experience in applied research and evaluation projects within the human services sector. At the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, Dias worked with the department’s eight program offices to identify and refine performance

and outcomes measures. She led data visualization projects to analyze and communicate performance, as well as in-depth evaluation. Previously, as research project director at Rutgers Graduate School of Education, Dias developed reports for funders and other stakeholders, ensuring consistency of data collection procedures to maintain data validity, and managed all institutional review board–related processes. Dias holds a master’s degree in city and regional planning from Cornell University and earned her doctoral degree from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Norris Dickard led the Healthy Students Group at the US Department of Education and, in 2018 and 2019, served as a senior policy advisor at the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy. He started his career as a middle school teacher and has worked as an administrator at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, and director of public policy at the Benton Foundation. David J. Downey is a senior policy analyst in the Office of Finance and Operations at the US Department of Education. He is responsible for developing grants policy guidance and training for prospective grant applicants, grantees, members of Congress, and federal and state employees administering discretionary and formula grant programs. Stephanie Doyle is a senior associate on the Young Children and Their Families team at the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP). Her work focuses on transforming pediatric and early childhood systems to promote the social and emotional development of young children and prevent and mitigate the effects of toxic stress, with a focus on strengthening the role of families as leaders and advocates. Doyle is CSSP’s lead content expert on quality improvement, helping the Early Childhood-LINC network use this approach. Before joining CSSP, she served as director for the Defending Childhood Initiative at the Boston Public Health Commission, a US Department of Justice demonstration to prevent and reduce the impact of children's exposure to violence in homes, schools, and communities. As part of that work, she led the design and implementation of the trauma-informed Early Education and Care Systems Breakthrough Series Collaborative that worked with Boston early care and education centers to use quality improvement methods to implement and adopt trauma-informed practices, policies, and environments. Doyle is a graduate of Villanova University and earned a master’s degree in public health from the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. Dan Duncan, senior consultant at Clear Impact, provides results-based accountability, asset-based community development, and collective impact training and support. He is also a faculty member of the Asset-Based Community Development Institute. Before his consulting practice, Duncan served as an agency executive director and United Way professional for more than 30 years. Matthew Eldridge is a policy program manager in the Urban Institute’s Research to Action Lab, leading work on innovative funding for social and environmental programs. Previously, he worked at the World Bank on aid effectiveness and on Central Asia portfolio management. He earned a master’s degree from the London School of Economics. Robin Galas is TRIOS/educational talent search director at Chabot Community College. She promotes educational equity and access by providing high-quality educational programming to K–12 students, focusing on vulnerable middle and high school youth, underserved families, and educators and providers who serve these students. Galas began her career in education by piloting and managing garden-based, experiential learning programs for middle and high school students in San Mateo County. Most recently, Galas held multiple positions as both adjunct faculty and assistant director with Foothill College’s Family Engagement Institute, a cradle-to-career initiative that provides educational opportunities to strengthen the capacity of families, schools, and communities through family engagement. In her current capacity at Chabot College, she supports college readiness for low-income, potential first-generation college students and coordinates the Hayward Promise Neighborhood grant, a place-based initiative that supports long-lasting strategies and solutions for residents in the South Hayward neighborhood. Megan Gallagher is a senior research associate in the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center and the Center on Education Data and Policy at the Urban Institute. Her research focuses on efforts to improve housing and educational opportunities for children in low-income families. She studies how housing and neighborhood initiatives affect schools and how schools and education policies affect neighborhoods. Her current projects include a pilot demonstration to improve low-income parents' information about their children’s educational opportunities and an analysis of school- and neighborhood-level predictors of school closures. Gallagher also provides research and technical support for place-based initiatives that seek to improve educational outcomes. In DC's Kenilworth-Parkside neighborhood, she provides research support to a federal

Promise Neighborhoods grantee that is building a school-centered, neighborhood-based, cradle-to-career continuum for children and families. In Prince George's County, Maryland, Gallagher provides research and analytic support to the TNI@Schools initiative, a collaborative effort between the school district and the county that provides wraparound services for students in school. Before joining Urban in 2005, Gallagher studied the impacts of welfare programs on adult, child, and family well-being at Child Trends. While there, she cowrote several publications on child well-being and employment among low-income mothers. She holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology and social welfare from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a master's degree in public policy from Georgetown University. Juanita Gallion helps lead the Center for the Study of Social Policy’s (CSSP’s) work to advance racial equity through facilitation, training, capacity building, leadership development, and coaching with various national and local partners. She also supports the learning culture within the organization and shapes the creation and dissemination of lessons learned across CSSP’s various bodies of work. Previously, Gallion managed technical assistance and training for several large-scale community initiatives, including the US Department of Education’s Promise Neighborhoods program and the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Making Connections initiative, to ensure families and communities had the resources they needed to achieve success. Before joining CSSP, Gallion was at the National Civic League, where she managed the training, technical assistance, and learning agenda for a national initiative aimed at reducing children’s exposure to violence. Gallion’s additional experience includes working on various racial and social justice issues, including youth and community engagement, workers’ rights, and national AIDS/HIV advocacy. She graduated from the University of Chicago with a master’s degree in social service administration with concentrations in community development and policy and received her bachelor’s degree in law and society from American University. She is currently one of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Results Count™ advanced practitioners and part of the Cataylst:Ed and Equity in the Center DEI Expert Hub. Sarah Gillespie is a research director in the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center at the Urban Institute. Her research focuses on housing and homelessness, place-based initiatives, and performance measurement. She leads technical assistance efforts on data collection and performance measurement for federal Promise Neighborhood place-based grantees. Rachel Goins is the technical assistance lead for the Teacher Quality TA Center at AEM Corporation. She has 11 years of experience managing, designing, and delivering research-based technical assistance (TA) for national, state, and local education stakeholders. Her early school climate and social-emotional learning work with state education agencies, her recent personalized learning work with local education agencies, and her current teacher quality work across the educator continuum employed an equity-centric TA approach and focused on providing college and career readiness supports and educational choice. She co-led the TA Center providing support to Race to the Top districts and consortia of districts implementing personalized learning. She helped design and facilitate national convenings, virtual learning networks, and on-site TA focused on logic models, strategic communications and stakeholder engagement, project-based learning, and data dashboards and systems to support real-time instructional decisions, barriers to college persistence and degree attainment, and sustainability. She coleads the Teacher Quality Programs TA Center, which serves grantees across the educator continuum working to improve the preparation and professional development of teachers and school leaders. She is also a member of the Promise Neighborhoods TA team. Together, these TA projects support the federal grant programs’ goals to provide all students, particularly rural and Black and Latino students, with the academic rigor, career technical education, and work-based learning experiences necessary to develop the skills and intellectual dispositions to be successful in life after high school. Iyauta Green, a senior risk analyst with the US Department of Education’s Risk Management Services Division, has been working in risk management for 12 years. In this capacity, Green has managed several high-risk entities and grantees and provided training on internal control, financial management, grants management, and operations. Green received her bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School and her master’s in public administration from American University. Green has experience in nonprofits, and before coming to the department, she worked at DC Public Schools as an advisor to the school board and the Superintendent’s Office. Erica Greenberg is a senior research associate at the Urban Institute. Her research spans early childhood and K–12 education, focusing on programs and policies like public prekindergarten, Head Start, child care subsidies, and home visiting. She also investigates the causes, consequences, and measurement of educational inequality.

S. James Guitard is an education program analyst at the US Department of Education with extensive history and experience in systemic education reform efforts ranging from place-based initiatives and school choice and improvement programs to family and community engagement strategies. Guitard has provided technical assistance to school districts, universities, and nonprofit organizations concerning their efforts to build a complete continuum of cradle-to-career solutions that includes both educational programs and family and community supports, with great schools at the center. Guitard has also overseen federal grants to eligible local educational agencies to establish and operate magnet schools operated under a court-ordered or federally approved voluntary desegregation plan to desegregate public schools by supporting the elimination, reduction, and prevention of minority group isolation. Currently, Guitard provides grant management and technical assistance to federally funded Full-Service Community Schools that provide comprehensive academic, social, and health services for students, students’ family members, and community members to improve educational outcomes for children.

Melinda Hall, executive director, came to Hayward Promise Neighborhoods from senior management positions in Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District and Mt. Diablo Unified School District. Having served as director of special education for 10 years and director of curriculum and instruction for 4 years, Hall has built sustainable, inclusive communities that support educational success for all students and established networks of support, engagement, and communication for parents, guardians, and community members—reflecting Hayward Promise Neighborhoods’ mission and goals. In both school districts, Hall supervised principals and district office–certificated and classified staff and allocated and monitored $5–10 million budgets. Before her work as a central office administrator, she was a middle school site administrator and teacher. Hall received a bachelor’s degree in education with a major in French and a minor in political science from Western Washington State University. She earned a credential in special education from San Francisco State University and a master’s degree in educational leadership from St. Mary’s College in Moraga, California. Karen Dorsey Hargrove, a longtime staffer at the US Department of Education, has worked on both discretionary and formula grant programs and is a member of the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Evidence-Based Policy for Discretionary Grants team. Hargrove began her career at the department in the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, working with the Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative, the Department’s early support of family and community-focused programs. During her 20 years at the department, Hargrove has provided support to grantees and state and local education agencies on various programs, including Title I, Title II, Title III, and Race to the Top. Before the department, Hargrove was a child welfare specialist at the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Children’s Bureau. Hargrove has a master’s degree in public administration from the George Washington University and is particularly interested in the evaluation of community initiatives. Alvin C. Hathaway Sr. has the distinction of being the 10th pastor in the 159-year history of Union Baptist Church. He was elected in February 2007 after serving for three years as the assistant pastor. Reverend Hathaway is the president and CEO of Union Baptist Church – School Inc. and the contributing author of several books and journal articles relating to community-based approaches to serving children and youth.

Adrienne F. Hawkins, management and program analyst, joined the US Department of Education’s Full-Service Community Schools and Promise Neighborhoods programs in 2011. She has a special interest in comprehensive programs for children and youth and in family and community engagement programs. Before joining the US Department of Education, Hawkins worked for the School District of Philadelphia, Covenant House Washington, Volunteers of America, and the Prince George’s County Public School System. She attended Morgan State University and the University of Maryland School of Social Work. She is a member of the Morgan State University Alumni Association and the National Council of Negro Women Inc. Melissa Hicks, director of stability and empowerment programs for Self-Enhancement Inc. and director of the Albina-Rockwood Promise Neighborhood, has worked in various settings with youth and families in San Diego. Her experience in classroom and school administration led her to Self Enhancement Inc., where she supports programs that empower youth and families.

Anna Hinton is the director for evidence-based policy for discretionary grants in the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education at the US Department of Education. In this role, she oversees evidence-based grantmaking strategy and policy development. Before this, Hinton served as the director of the department’s Parental Options and Improvement Programs Division in the Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII), where she managed a portfolio of grants focused on school choice

and place-based and arts-in-education initiatives. Before joining OII, Hinton served as special assistant to the Student Achievement and School Accountability Program director and was responsible for overseeing the day-to-day program operations for the Title I, Part A, program under the No Child Left Behind Act. Hinton holds a bachelor's degree in speech communications from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a master’s degree in criminal justice from North Carolina Central University, and a doctoral degree in sociology from American University.

Kilolo Kijakazi is an Institute fellow at the Urban Institute. Kijakazi conducts research on economic security, structural racism, and the racial wealth gap and works across Urban to develop collaborative partnerships with those most affected by economic and social issues. She is a board member of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, the National Academy of Social Insurance, the Center for Global Policy Solutions, the Policy Academies, and Liberation in a Generation and is an adviser for the Closing the Women’s Wealth Gap Initiative. Richard Ivo Kress has worked at the US Department of Education since 1990. His work responsibilities spanned the Migrant Education Program, the Magnet Schools Assistance Program, and the Arts Education Programs before he joined the Promise Neighborhoods team. He enjoys working with programs that provide comprehensive services so that all community needs can be addressed. Kress has an associate’s degree in general studies from Northern Virginia Community College and a bachelor’s degree in government and politics from George Mason University. Jenna Lawson, program manager for academic services for the Berea College Partners for Education Knox Promise Neighborhood initiative, oversees the implementation of a K–12 case management model across three Eastern Kentucky school districts. Using results-based decisionmaking, she leads her team to ensure students are academically proficient and graduate from high school. Through her previous work with the first rural Promise Neighborhood, Lawson has helped improve educational outcomes for students across multiple school districts while building capacity and sustainability for data-driven interventions. She has developed training for academic case managers and has designed professional development for paraeducators. Beginning her work with Berea College as an interventionist, Lawson has helped develop academic case management from the ground up. As a graduate of University of the Cumberlands, Lawson is committed to bringing high-quality education to students in Appalachia. Dominique Lee is the founder and CEO of the Building Resilient Intelligent Creative Kids (BRICK) Education Network. The BRICK Education Network is a charter management organization based in Newark, New Jersey, that invests in children and their caregivers together to relentlessly knock down barriers to students’ academic success.

Kathryn Lembo, president and CEO of South Bay Community Services, came to the agency in December 1980 as a program director, became executive director in 1982, and has been successfully leading development of the agency since that time. With Lembo’s leadership, South Bay Community Services has grown from a small 10-person street agency to a complex, multisite, 210-employee organization that is recognized locally and statewide for innovation and creativity. Lembo is active locally with the Juvenile Justice Coordinating Council and as past chair of the Youth Services Network. She is active at the state level as a participant on the State Advisory Group of Juvenile Justice and Planning for the Office of Criminal Justice and Planning. She is also active federally through the National Network for Youth. Lembo was past vice chair of the Western States Youth Services Network and the California Child, Youth and Family Coalition. Lembo has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and sociology and a master’s degree in sociology.

Ross Lemke is the director of the Privacy Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) and has an extensive knowledge of the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and its intersection and overlap with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). He also has 20 years’ experience in the public, nonprofit, and private sectors—including 12 years in education—in technical assistance, data management, data collection, and privacy and security. Previously, he worked on the IDEA Data Center (IDC), where he provided technical assistance on the IDEA Confidentiality Rule, authored a Parts B and C confidentiality checklist, and presented at multiple conferences on the intersections between FERPA and IDEA. He has worked with the State of Maine around requirements gathering and user acceptance testing for a new Part C and Part B 619 tracking system. He has also worked with special education offices in Georgia, Idaho, Nebraska, and South Dakota on data governance activities involving mapping business processes around their special education systems and how the data in those systems roll up to the Department of Education. Lemke has managed two of the Department of Education’s largest K–12 data collections centers (EDFacts and Civil Rights Data Collection), helping states and districts provide federally mandated data to

the US Department of Education. He has experience evaluating education data systems and developing business intelligence analysis and reports for elementary and secondary education data systems. He has also provided technical support for data integration, data security, student privacy, and data collection in areas such as Part B, Part B 619, Part C, and Title I. Megan Lepore, director of development and sustainability at the Center for Family Services, manages the sustainability plan and works with partners to leverage internal and external resources, including the blending and braiding of funding to support the growth and continuity of the Camden Promise Neighborhoods initiative. As a strategic resource developer, Lepore supports education, social justice, and community economic development efforts. She is responsible for developing the framing of the collective impact strategies and data-driven process across audiences, especially existing and potential funders. For 15 years, Lepore has focused her work on development and integrated communications and therefore has extensive experience in fundraising and strategic plan development, board development, branding and messaging, relationship management, crisis communication, and event management. She also has project management experience, having provided supervision to large teams through engagements with major nonprofit organizations in Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey. Lepore received a bachelor’s degree in journalism, public relations, and advertising and a master’s degree in communication management from Temple University in Philadelphia. Walter Lewis is the president and CEO of Homewood Children’s Village, where he oversees partnerships across the pipeline. Walter began at Homewood Children’s Village as a volunteer and has since served at every level of the organization. He received his bachelor’s degree from Cheyney University and his master’s degree from Carnegie Mellon University. Kyla Liggett-Creel is an assistant clinical professor at the University of Maryland School of Social Work. Previously, she served as a senior clinical social worker at the Center for Infant Studies for three years. For nine years, she was a supervising clinical social worker at the Kennedy Krieger Institute and coordinated a clinic for children between birth and age 5 who had experienced trauma. Liggett-Creel has presented for child welfare agencies across Maryland on issues related to trauma, attachment, and development, as well as behavioral management for children in educational settings. She has also published an article on evidence-based practice with parents of children from birth to age 7 who have experienced trauma. She developed, implemented, and evaluated Parent University for the Promise Heights program, a place-based initiative in the Upton/Druid Heights community, and serves as the program’s director of data management and program evaluation. Liggett-Creel’s bachelor’s degree is from the University of Maryland, College Park; her master’s degree is from Smith College School of Social Work; and her doctoral degree is from the School of Social Work at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. Xiomara Mateo-Gaxiola is senior director of Transform Schools and RISE: Resilience in School Environments, a partnership between Kaiser Permanente and Los Angeles Education Partnership. Mateo-Gaxiola started her career as a third and fourth grade teacher and math instructional coach. Her interests in improving teaching conditions led her to the University of Southern California (USC) to design research studies on teachers’ reflective practices, write curriculum for USC’s school administrator credentialing program, and teach in USC’s Equity Educator’s Certificate program. She holds a doctoral degree in urban school leadership from USC. Karen C. Matthews serves as president and CEO of the Delta Health Alliance, a nonprofit organization that initiates, manages, and supports a wide variety of health care initiatives across the 18-county region of the Mississippi Delta.

Bronwyn Mayden is the assistant dean and executive director of Promise Heights at the University of Maryland School of Social Work, a collaborative of over 20 partner nonprofits and schools. Promise Heights seeks to offset the effects of growing up in poverty by building a continuum of cradle-to-career supports that enable children to reach their full potential. Marla McDaniel is a senior fellow in the Center on Labor, Human Services, and Population at the Urban Institute. Before joining Urban, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Columbia University School of Social Work. McDaniel has researched, written about, and spoken about racial disparities; low-income children, youth, and families; and the programs and policy environments that touch families’ lives. She is interested in the relationships between vulnerabilities and in how inequality across multiple domains—including health, education, and employment—has a compounding effect on overall health and well-being. McDaniel earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Swarthmore College and worked as a case manager for youth in foster care before earning a doctorate in human development and social policy from Northwestern University.

Sara McTarnaghan is a research associate in the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center at the Urban Institute, where she researches urban resilience, affordable housing, and nonprofit capacity building. Since 2015, she has managed Urban’s efforts to provide technical assistance to the US Department of Education’s Promise Neighborhoods grantees. Kelli Moore, project director for Knox Promise Neighborhood, develops strong teams using the collective impact model for cradle-to-career work. A summa cum laude graduate of Eastern Kentucky University, Moore worked in public relations until moving into the education arena to help communities build bridges to their biggest dreams. Elson B. Nash has worked in the education and nonprofit fields for more than 25 years. He started his career with the Carter Center’s first domestic initiative, the Atlanta Project. After that, Nash worked in various capacities in higher education at the local, state, and national levels. His career as a funder began at Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, where he searched and selected social entrepreneurs for the prestigious Ashoka Fellowship. In 2002, he began his career in the federal government at the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), where he started as a program coordinator for Learn and Serve America and advanced to acting director. His tenure at CNCS ended after 10 years, when he ultimately became deputy director of the White House Council for Community Solutions. In 2012, Nash departed CNCS to work for the US Department of Education as team lead for the Promise Neighborhoods and Full-Service Community Schools programs. Meghan Neary is a senior associate at FourPoint Education Partners, where she manages district reviews, strategic and sustainability planning processes, and varied implementation supports. In this capacity, she has helped school districts identify and execute their education priorities in diverse communities, such as Fairfax County (VA), Syracuse, Tulsa, Los Angeles, Grand Island (NE), and the greater Hartford area. She has supported leaders on issues ranging from school-community partnerships to talent management to high school reform and has developed and executed technical assistance and planning efforts of national and regional foundations and national nonprofits. Before joining FourPoint, Neary served at the US Department of Education, where she provided strategic support to the assistant secretary of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. She also served as senior associate at Collaborative Communications Group, where she authored reports, guides, and other publications on varied educational improvement topics. Neary received a master’s degree in education policy from the George Washington University. Monroe Nichols is director of network growth for StriveTogether, where he leads the strategy development for cultivating and supporting communities seeking to join the Cradle to Career Network. Nichols started in the network as a founding staff member at ImpactTulsa. He currently serves in the Oklahoma House of Representatives. Julie O’Donnell, Ph.D., MSW, is a professor at the School of Social Work at California State University, Long Beach. She has been involved in the development and evaluation of Full-Service Community Schools since 1995. O’Donnell has published numerous articles on Full-Service Community Schools and related topics such as family involvement and out-of-school programs. Frances Outland is the director of the Indirect Cost Division (ICD) in the Office of Grants Administration of the Office of Finance and Operations at the US Department of Education. ICD is responsible for issuing indirect rate agreements to nonprofits, state educational agencies, and commercial entities, where the Department of Education is the cognizant agency. These rate agreements are primarily issued annually for each entity. ICD also provides technical assistance to the entity and department personnel. Outland has been with the Department of Education for the past 10 years, and in her current role, her primary responsibility is managing the issuance of negotiated indirect rate agreements for approximately 300 entities annually. She has over 35 years of professional auditing experience and has held previous auditor positions at the Government Accountability Office, the Defense Contract Audit Agency, and the Agency for International Development. These positions entailed working with contractors and grantees of multimillion-dollar companies, auditing their books and records from everything between initial accounting system reviews to the close-out of contracts and grants. She has extensive experience auditing indirect costs rates from a contractor and grantee perspective using the FAR regulations and 2 CFR 200 uniform guidance issued by the Office of Management and Budget. Outland has a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Hampton University and is a certified public accountant in Maryland. Heather Clapp Padgette is a senior consultant with FourPoint Education Partners, where she focuses on education finance and reform, strategic planning, and related engagements. Padgette has extensive expertise in afterschool programming,

expanded learning, and other education-related issues. She has worked on various topics including school district financial and human resource allocation analyses, nonprofit finance and organizational development, financing summer learning, and expanding learning opportunities. Padgette has provided direct technical assistance to leadership groups of state and local public agencies, school districts, nonprofits, and key funders to help them identify strategic priorities, plan for implementing key strategies, and determine the best way to organize around short- and long-term strategies. She has worked for diverse public and private entities, including supporting the development of the initial strategic plan for Newark Thrives! afterschool network and conducting a cost analysis of Elizabeth (NJ) Public Schools’ longer school day. Before becoming a consultant, Padgette served as a senior associate at the Finance Project, a Washington, DC–based nonprofit that supports educational and human services organizations. She also worked in the public sector practice at Deloitte Consulting, providing a range of consulting services to school districts and state policymakers on children’s health services and special education. She has also worked on education reform issues for Chicago Public Schools and the Consortium on Chicago School Research. Padgette received a master’s degree from the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago. Rachel Pinuelas-Morineau is the community engagement program director with South Bay Community Services. Pinuelas-Morineau and her team of promotores support the coordination of services within the Chula Vista promise zone, bringing together the community resources and education that empower adults with an understanding of the importance of volunteerism, community engagement, leadership, and policy changes. Christine Piven is deputy chief education officer in Philadelphia’s Mayor’s Office of Education. Piven serves in various roles, from managing and advising programs to overseeing strategic initiatives, including community schools, PHLpreK, and the citywide Out of School Time Initiative, in collaboration with multiple city departments and external stakeholders. Olga Acosta Price, a clinical psychologist with postdoctoral training in school mental health, is director of the Center for Health and Health Care in Schools, a national resource and technical assistance center based at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. She is also an associate professor in the university’s Department of Prevention and Community Health. Maria-Lana Queen has worked for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for 29 years. She currently serves as the liaison for federal interagency youth initiatives and as a program manager for HUD’s ROSS for Education Program. Queen received the Secretary’s Award for Distinguished Service and holds a bachelor’s degree in business management/marketing from the University of the District of Columbia. Tara Ramsey, director of state and grantee relations for the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, leads efforts to improve customer service and communications at the US Department of Education. Previously, she was the acting director of Indian education and a group leader in the Office of Migrant Education. Richard Raya is the director of Mission Promise Neighborhood (MPN) in San Francisco. He is focused on using a common agenda and shared measurement with MPN’s 20 community partners to improve educational results for San Francisco’s children, as well as convincing government to institutionalize the cradle-to-career continuum of services that Promise Neighborhoods provide. Over the past two decades, Raya has brought community leaders, administrators, and elected officials together to improve community outcomes and generate revenue. His roles have included chief of staff for an Oakland city councilmember, executive director of Youth Radio, and director of administration for the Alameda County Public Health Department. Raya dropped out of high school but attended community college and ultimately earned a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in public policy from the University of California, Berkeley. Gerard Robinson is the executive director of the Center for Advancing Opportunity and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Robinson’s distinguished career includes service as commissioner of education for the State of Florida and secretary of education for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Robinson coedited Education for Liberation: The Politics of Promise and Reform inside and beyond America’s Prisons (2019) and coauthored a forthcoming book chapter about US education reform for Oxford University Press.

Jeff Rodamar is the protection of human subjects coordinator with the US Department of Education. Before his current post, he worked in program evaluation with the department’s Planning and Evaluation Service. He has also served as senior legislative assistant for education for a member of Congress on the Education and Labor Committee, taught at the college level, and worked in survey research and data analysis. He is an ex-officio member of the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Human Research Protections, participates in the interagency Confidentiality and Data Access Committee, and is a member of the American Educational Research Association, the American Statistical Association, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Anju J. Rupchandani is the managing director of Zone 126 and has worked in nonprofit education for the past two decades. She holds a dual bachelor’s degree in adolescent education and history and a master’s degree in community-based learning and is earning her doctoral degree in education leadership and innovation. Mark Salinas is a council member for the City of Hayward, California, and teaches and works for the Hayward Promise Neighborhood. After earning a master’s degree from San Francisco State University, he began teaching ethnic studies and history at Chabot College. Salinas is also Hayward's liaison to the Alameda County Housing Authority.

Corianne Payton Scally is a principal research associate at the Urban Institute. Her research includes service coordination for public housing residents, technical assistance for housing providers, foreclosure counseling, community development and health, and rural issues. She has also led research initiatives at the US Department of Agriculture’s Rural Housing Service.

Sherry Scott currently serves as the organizational results and data officer for Partners for Education at Berea College, a no-tuition private liberal arts college in Berea, Kentucky. Scott brings more than 25 years of leadership and grant management experience in the nonprofit and education sectors to Partners for Education. In her current role, she ensures organizational results attainment and provides strategic data systems leadership, vision, and monitoring for Partners for Education programming in 31 counties across southeast Kentucky. Before joining Berea College, she worked primarily in the nonprofit and educational fields, focusing on supporting vulnerable populations. She has extensive experience directing federal grant programs, developing partnerships and key coalitions, designing data-driven continuous improvement systems, and leading cradle-to-career, place-based initiatives in Appalachian Kentucky. A first-generation college graduate, Scott earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing and a master’s degree in corrections and juvenile services from Eastern Kentucky University.

Anand Sharma, senior associate at the Center for the Study of Social Policy, engages in network design, facilitation, and strategic capacity building to help leaders develop the skills they need, identify the results they want to achieve, align the contributions of multiple partners, and engage in learning to increase effectiveness. Whether supporting leaders in creating a vision for their neighborhood or improving education outcomes in their community, the common thread in his work is fostering greater collaboration and learning in the service of better results for children and families. Sharma’s experience includes providing technical assistance and leadership development to grantees of the US Department of Education’s Promise Neighborhoods program and the federal interagency Building Neighborhood Capacity Program. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Michigan Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and an executive program certificate in social impact strategy from the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice.

Aqeela Sherrills is the director of the Newark Community Street Team. In 1992, Sherrills helped forge a historic truce between the Crips and the Bloods gangs in Watts, California. In addition to his current role at the Newark Community Street Team, he is the senior project manager overseeing the Shared Safety Initiative at the Alliance for Safety and Justice.

Patrick Smith has worked at the Department of Education for over 25 years in discretionary and formula grants and audit resolution. Additionally, he worked for more than three years for the State of South Carolina’s Office of Federal Programs. Will Staton began his career teaching high school history through Teach for America. Over his career, he has served as a teacher, parent coordinator, dean of students, and talent recruiter. Staton is currently the director of recruitment for the Literacy Lab, an AmeriCorps program focused on improving childhood literacy outcomes.

Randell Strickland has spent most of his career in two fields: education and criminal and juvenile justice. Since arriving in Washington, DC, in 2017, Strickland has worked with Youth and Families in Crisis as a senior trainer and consultant in restorative justice practices, whole school implementation, and restorative discipline.

Peter A. Tatian is a senior fellow and research director for Urban–Greater DC at the Urban Institute. He advises nonprofits on performance management and evaluation and heads Urban’s work providing technical assistance on data collection and use to grantees of the US Department of Education’s Promise Neighborhoods initiative. Tatian directed the evaluation of the National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling program, which has provided counseling services to more than 1 million troubled homeowners. He has also studied the impacts of public and supportive housing on neighborhoods and has worked on housing policy reform in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Tatian is a member of the DC Local Initiatives Support Corporation Advisory Committee, the Park Morton New Communities Steering Committee, and the United Planning Organization Community Reinvestment Advisory Council. Mauricio Torre started his career in nonprofit work at South Bay Community Services (SBCS) as a residential counselor in a runaway and homeless youth program 20 years ago. Eager to work in any capacity that gives back to his community, Torre has since served as the principal administrator of over 25 successful start-ups at SBCS. Some of his most fulfilling connections have been established in the juvenile justice and school systems, where he has actualized systemic changes through establishment of strong relationships, relentless pursuit of solutions for student success, and a strong sense of responsibility for the South Bay community's growth and betterment. Having worked in almost every capacity and program area of SBCS, Torre’s broad range of experience and infectiously warm and positive attitude have been key ingredients in his success as a leader in the community, and especially in serving justice-involved youth. Torre serves as an area representative in the California Coalition for Youth Board of Directors, sits on the Chula Vista Coordinating Council for the Chula Vista and National City Collaboratives, and is an active member of the Chula Vista Housing Commission. Gustavo Velasquez is director of Urban–Greater DC, the Urban Institute’s multidisciplinary program of evidence and policy analysis focused on the national capital region. As a reliable source of evidence and advice, the initiative provides policymakers and practitioners with relevant and actionable insights from research. Dr. Ward is the associate director for education and measurement of the National Implementation Research Network (NIRN) at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute within the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is also the director of the State Implementation and Scaling up of Evidence-based Practices Center, funded by the US Department of Education.

Allen Weeks has been executive director of Austin Voices for Education and Youth since 2010. A long-time educator and community activist, Weeks helped spearhead successful community school reform efforts at Webb Middle School and Reagan High School. He also created Family Resource Centers, which currently provide wraparound school-based services for families at eight Austin Independent School District campuses. In 2009, Weeks, in collaboration with AVEY Board Member Susan Moffat, formed Save Texas Schools, a statewide coalition of public school advocates. He has been recognized for his positive impact on education by the Texas Education Agency, Bank of America, and Livable City and is a hall of fame member of Austin Partners in Education. Under his leadership, the St. John community has won numerous awards, including the 100 Best Communities for Youth Award from America’s Promise Alliance. Weeks speaks throughout Texas and nationally about the effectiveness of the community school model. He has degrees from Washington and Lee University, Duke University, and the University of Texas at Austin and will complete his doctoral degree in education this year at Texas State University.

Byron White is the vice president of KnowledgeWorks and executive director of StrivePartnerships. He is responsible for leading this unique, educational partnership that aims to be the nation's best example of collective impact focused on sustainably improving outcomes for all children, from cradle to career. Previously, White was vice president for university engagement and chief diversity officer at Cleveland State University. He is also a faculty member of the ABCD Institute.

Carolyn Willis serves as the vice president of educational/health education programs for Delta Health Alliance. She oversees prenatal through career programs that focus on the education and overall well-being of children. Willis’s dual education in community development and business administration helps her balance the needs and challenges of local populations.

Toni Wilson is a workforce analyst at the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration. She has worked for over 14 years at the department. Wilson currently works on the Youth Build Program and is a liaison to the Office of Apprenticeship. She holds a master’s degree from Suffolk University in Massachusetts. Robert L. Woodson is the founder and president of the Woodson Center, which has helped residents of low-income neighborhoods address the problems of their communities since 1981. Woodson has focused much of the center’s activities on an initiative to establish violence-free zones in troubled schools and neighborhoods throughout the nation. A former civil rights activist, he has headed the National Urban League Department of Criminal Justice and has been a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Foundation for Public Policy Research.

Lisa X’unyéil Worl is the STEPS Partnership coordinator for the Association of Alaska School Boards. Worl supports work around family engagement, cultural integration, and trauma-informed practices in schools and communities. She has worked as an Alaska state legislative staffer, spent 16 years working in public education, and was elected to serve on the Juneau School Board. On the board, Worl initially focused on student retention and graduation but then recognized how equity policies and programs inherently impact everything from student learning to graduation. Worl graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Oregon.

Pam Wright is a licensed clinical social worker, a certified domestic violence counselor, and a practitioner of trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy, family systems theory, and brief strategic family therapy. Wright has worked with South Bay Community Services (SBCS) for over 25 years and in the field for more than 30. As the clinical director of SBCS, Wright oversees the agency’s clinical supervisors and clinical services for all programs. She has also provided clinical supervision for over 25 years to students, staff, and individuals working toward professional development and licensure and has been a trainer for over 24 years. Wright has trained on topics including domestic violence, engagement and assessment, and group facilitation and has trained on trauma-informed care, specifically, for 16 years. She also developed a training curriculum on trauma-informed care. Wright has continued to train and teach on trauma-informed care at conferences and university classes and gave a keynote speech on the topic at the National Promise Neighborhood’s Conference in Washington, DC. Wright has facilitated implementation of the trauma-informed service approach and paradigm shift within the organization. She also has a private practice working with individuals, families, and couples dealing with trauma. Wright received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Colorado and her master’s in social work from Denver University. Monica Young is AEM Corporation’s director of the Teacher Quality Programs TA Center. She has 16 years’ experience directing and evaluating longitudinal mixed-methods research, experimental studies, and data analytics. Her technical assistance focal areas include providing support to states and districts as they assess, plan, and implement strategies to support equitable access for all students; develop plans for implementing and sustaining initiatives; design communication and reporting for diverse stakeholder audiences; and address shifts in federal requirements stemming from legislative changes. She is also a What Works Clearinghouse certified reviewer. In her current role, she supports grantees implementing innovations in educator preparation and development from across seven grant programs. Previously, as director of the Equitable Access Support Network, she cofacilitated webinars for the Rural Access and Issues Community of Practice and analyzed rural leadership strategies included in state equity plans for a presentation she gave for the National Conference of State Legislatures Rural School Principals Meeting. Young’s technical experience includes evaluation of P–12 accountability system interventions, design of educator evaluation systems, and development of business requirements for online reporting systems and associated tutorials, user guides, and training materials. She has teaching experience at the graduate, undergraduate, and 7–12 grade levels in several areas, including fluid mechanics, engineering laboratory methods, statistics, and physics. Young holds a doctoral degree in science education from Syracuse University.