Leadership Team Member

Colleen is a trained linguist and has been working in the field of education for 16 years as a teacher, program coordinator, and evaluator.  Her primary professional interest is in investigating, implementing, and advocating for effective instruction for linguistically minoritized students.  She taught middle school in Baltimore and has taught ESL in Mexico, China, Providence, RI, and Little Rock, AR.  Previously, in her role as evaluator with Brown University, she was contracted by the New York Department of Education to evaluate the written, taught, and tested ELA curriculum in schools and districts struggling to meet the needs of their English learner populations.  Under a federally-funded Striving Readers grant, she evaluated the fidelity-to-model of three adolescent literacy interventions in western Massachusetts.  Concurrently with her Reading Ways work, Colleen serves as an Artist in Education with the Arkansas Arts Council.  In partnership with classroom teachers, she integrates content-area literacy and sheltered instruction for English learners into her week-long arts immersion residencies with students in central Arkansas public schools.

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