SEDL has a long history of work in the area of family and community connections with schools, including afterschool programming. SEDL's president and CEO, Wes Hoover, and the Partnership's director, Catherine Jordan, served on a national task force to design, plan, and deliver training to new 21st Century Community Learning Centers grantees across the United States at the program's inception in 1999. SEDL also served as the regional associate for the National Center for Community Education in the Southeast and Mid-South regions. SEDL published A
Resource Guide to Planning and Operating Afterschool Programs in hard copy and as a searchable data base on the Partnership's Web site.
SEDL's Partnership Role
SEDL serves as the primary contractor for the National Partnership for Quality Afterschool Learning, managing the budget and coordinating the activities of project partners, the project Steering Committee, and Content Advisory Teams. In addition to overall coordination, SEDL manages the Partnership's product development, dissemination, and training and technical assistance services.
SEDL leads the Partnership's work with state education agency staffs, local sites, and other key regional contacts to help identify and validate promising practices in the six priority content areas—reading, mathematics, science, the arts, technology, and homework—and provides training and technical assistance. SEDL provides regional afterschool training events directly for three of the eight regions designated by the U.S. Department of Education: the Mid-South, Northeast, and Mid-Atlantic. It also provides afterschool training events on a fee-for-service basis for individual state education agencies.
Project Staff
Catherine F. Jordan, Project Director
Catherine Jordan is program director for the National Partnership for Quality Afterschool Learning at SEDL in Austin, Texas. She is responsible for the overall management and performance of the six-member Partnership and coordination of its Steering Committee. She leads the Partnership's Leadership Team.
Ms. Jordan has been involved in national afterschool work
since 1999, when she began to serve on the National Training
Task Force for the 21st Century Community Learning Centers.
She directed SEDL's work as the regional associate of the
National Center for Community Education (NCCE) in the Mid-South
and Southeast regions of the United States. Prior to joining
SEDL, she served as executive director for the McLennan County
Youth Collaboration-Communities In Schools, Inc., in Waco,
Texas, where she developed the nationally recognized afterschool
program Lighted Schools as a part of the Pew Charitable
Trust's Partnership for Civic Change.
She received her BA in history and journalism from Baylor
University. She holds a MAT in public service from Tarleton
State University in Stephenville, Texas.
Deborah J. Donnelly, Product Development Coordinator
Deborah Donnelly is a program associate and product development coordinator with the National Partnership for Quality Afterschool Learning at SEDL. She oversees the conceptualization and development of the project's Afterschool
Training Toolkit, with components to address reading, mathematics, science, the arts, technology, and homework help. She coordinates the involvement of regional staff and national expert consultants in the design, development, and production of the toolkit and other resource materials. Dr. Donnelly works with staff from the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing at UCLA (CRESST) to develop standards for assessing the extent to which afterschool program practices are linked to research on effective teaching and learning in specific content areas. She plans appropriate dissemination strategies and identifies existing dissemination channels to assure broad accessibility of the Partnership's products and information, and also serves on the Partnership's Leadership Team.
Prior to joining SEDL, Dr. Donnelly completed 26 years of service in public school education as a classroom teacher, staff development specialist, teacher supervisor, principal, afterschool director, and central administrator.
Dr. Donnelly received her BS in elementary education from
the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. She holds an MA and
a PhD in educational administration from The University
of Texas at Austin.
Joseph L. Parker, Technical Assistance Coordinator
Joseph L. Parker is a program associate with the National
Partnership for Quality Afterschool Learning at SEDL. His
current responsibilities include developing and assisting
in the implementation of technical assistance to State
Education Agency Afterschool Coordinators, and afterschool
programs with promising or exemplary practices.
Mr. Parker also directs the technical assistance activity
and material development and dissemination are directed,
in conjunction with Partnership staff, by Mr. Parker. Additional
duties include the development and coordination of site
visits to potential promising or exemplary practice sites
in the six content areas under study.
Previous work at SEDL includes Systemic School Improvement
Facilitation and the organization and dissemination of professional
development topics to Comprehensive School Reform sites.
Prior to those experiences Mr. Parker was a classroom teacher
and school level administrator for 23 years, and a Change
Facilitator with an Educational Service Center in Texas with
special emphasis on high risk populations and extended learning
opportunities. Mr. Parker received a BS in Secondary Education
- Social Sciences and a MS in Educational Administration
from New Mexico State University.
Jerry O. Elder, Training Coordinator
Jerry Elder is a program associate with the National Partnership
for Quality Afterschool Learning at SEDL. As the Partnership's
training coordinator, he provides leadership in the development,
coordination, or provision of training events for 21st
Century Community Learning Centers. He serves as a member
of the Partnership's Leadership Team and works with the
team to coordinate all training events. He also works with
21st Century Community Learning Center coordinators in
state departments of education to coordinate training events
and related issues.
Prior to his current position, Mr. Elder provided technical assistance to Comprehensive School Reform grantees and conducted site visits for the Smaller Learning Communities program. He also facilitated start-up training for afterschool programs and provided assistance to school districts in the development of leadership teams as part of SEDL's systemic school improvement initiative.
Mr. Elder holds a BA in institutional management from Michigan
State University and an MA in hospital and health administration
from the University of Iowa.
Suzanne Stiegelbauer,
Consultant
(Arts Content Specialty Area)
Suzanne Stiegelbauer works with the National Partnership
to research, design, train, and collaborate with arts partners
in the development of the arts component of the Afterschool
Training Toolkit. Dr. Stiegelbauer is currently a professor
and research associate with the Ontario Institute for Studies
in Education/University of Toronto, where she worked with
Dr. Michael Fullan. She is also a visiting professor at
Texas State University at San Marcos. Her work has addressed
visual arts education, education and community leadership
studies, school reform and change issues. A former art
teacher, museum curator, and anthropologist, Dr. Stiegelbauer
additionally helped conduct the research and development
work that resulted in the nationally recognized Concerns-Based
Adoption Model (CBAM).
Dr. Stiegelbauer holds a BS in art from Nazareth College
in Rochester, New York; an MA in art education from the University
of Illinois; and an MA and PhD in anthropology from the University
of Texas at Austin.
Marilyn J. Heath, Regional Technical
Assistance Staff
(Technology Specialty Area)
Marilyn Heath is a Program Associate with the National
Partnership for Quality Afterschool Learning at SEDL.
As regional technology coordinator, Dr. Heath's primary
responsibility is to lead the National Partnership's
technology toolkit and training development effort for
promoting effective ways to integrate technology into
afterschool programs and activities.
Dr. Heath's previous experience at SEDL includes her work
as a lead researcher in the Applying Technology for Restructuring
and Learning project and as a lead curriculum designer for
the Active Learning with Technology and Promoting Technology
Leadership professional development portfolios. Prior to
joining SEDL, Dr. Heath served as a project manager and senior
instructional technologist for System One Amadeus, an airline
computer reservation system in Houston. Prior to that she
was a classroom teacher, with experience at all levels from
kindergarten through higher education, including afterschool
programs. She holds a BA in art education from Washburn University
in Topeka, Kansas. She earned an MEd in art education and
an EdD in Instructional Technology from the University
of Houston, Houston, Texas.
Laura Shankland, Communications Specialist
As a communications specialist with the National Partnership, Laura Shankland works on a variety of training materials for afterschool professionals and coordinates the production of print and electronic publications. She is also the
editor of AfterWords, the National Partnership’s
monthly newsletter.
Ms. Shankland has experience developing and editing educational
materials for Holt Rinehart and Winston and other educational
publishers. Before coming to Austin, Ms. Shankland worked
as a bilingual fifth-grade teacher in Phoenix, Arizona, through
Teach for America. Her out-of-school education experience
includes managing a summer English as a Second Language program
at the Scottsdale Boys and Girls Club in Arizona.
Ms. Shankland holds a BA in history and political science
from Colorado College and an MA in Latin American Studies
from the University of Texas at Austin.
Kathy Dick, Technical Assistance Staff
(Technology Specialty Area)
As a technology consultant with the National Partnership for Quality Afterschool Learning at SEDL, Ms. Dick works with the technology toolkit development team to integrate technology ideas into content areas of the toolkit including reading, mathematics, science, art, and homework. She is also assisting with the creation of a portion of the toolkit directed solely at the effective use of technology in afterschool programs. She visits afterschool sites designated by CRESST as models of excellence and also provides technical assistance to afterschool program staff through workshop presentations at national and regional conferences.
Prior to her work at SEDL, Ms. Dick taught high school English
for nearly 30 years in a small town in rural Oklahoma. During
this time, she also developed and taught a four-year rotating
humanities curriculum to a cross-grade class of gifted and
talented students, grades 9–12. For the last 5 years,
Ms. Dick has worked at the Oklahoma State Department of Education
in instructional technology professional development and
most recently served as the state administrator of the 21st
Century Community Learning Centers program.
Ms. Dick received her BA in English from the University
of Oklahoma.
Patricia Barnicle, Northeast Region Consultant
Patricia Barnicle is an Education Consultant with the National
Partnership for Quality Afterschool Learning. She provides
technical assistance and is the training coordinator for
the Northeast and East Regions. She serves as a member
of the project Leadership Team and works with them on training
events and related issues. She also works with state 21st
Century Community Learning Center coordinators in the Northeast
and East regions.
Ms. Barnicle served as the East Regional Associate for the National Center for Community Education, Flint, Michigan. She organized a Regional Advisory Committee to plan and implement training opportunities for 21st CCLC grantees and others involved in afterschool programming, connecting with State Education Agency Representatives to coordinate activities, collaborating with other organizations to implement trainings and served as a resource in the East for the afterschool field. She has also served as the Program Director for Community Service Learning at Tufts University where she designed and implemented. School/Community Partnerships with public schools and the university focusing on education reform and school change.
Prior to this Ms. Barnicle served as Associate Director
for Regional Outreach for The Thomas Jefferson Forum in Boston
where she designed and implemented training for school staff
in service learning and built a statewide network to support
this work in Massachusetts. Prior to this, she was the coordinator
of the Museum Teaching Program at Old Sturbridge Village
in Sturbridge, MA where she developed curriculum in the areas
of reading and language arts and social studies for schools
to use. Ms. Barnicle holds a BS in Elementary Education and
an MA in Public Administration Program from Framingham State
College.
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