Jalima Alicea began her career as a paraprofessional in Baltimore City Schools. She transitioned to a Special Education teacher where she provided specially designed instruction to students with disabilities in grades K-6. After 5 years of teaching, Jalima assumed a leadership role as the Special Education Coordinator and Deputy Director of Special Education with Friendship Public Chater Schools in Washington, DC.

Jalima returned to Baltimore City Schools in 2009 where she held the roles of Educational Specialist in the Office of Special Education, Special Education Liaison, Coordinator of Specialized Learning and finally Director of Specialized Learning before transitioning to her current role as Executive Director of Teaching & Learning for Baltimore City Schools.

Matt Barrow has been an educator in the Baltimore City Public Schools for over twelve years. As a middle school teacher, he had the opportunity to teach both ELA and Social Studies for seven years. Since 2018, he has served in various district leadership roles within the district Office of Teaching & Learning. As the Coordinator of Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS), he focused on aligning existing district systems and structures to an MTSS framework and developing the infrastructure to improve school-based MTSS implementation. As the Coordinator of Academic Tutoring he designed and managed implementation of the district’s ambitious high-dosage tutoring initiative. In his current role as the Director of Differentiated Learning, he is working to improve district-wide implementation of Tier 2 academic supports, expand access to advanced learning opportunities, and deliver high-dosage tutoring to over 19,000 students across 129 schools by the end of the 2023-2024 school year.

Danielle Crain has more than 15 years of experience providing technical assistance to support policy development, systems improvement, and addressing equity issues. Ms. Crain serves as CCNetwork Liaison Lead for the National Comprehensive Center. She coordinates the efforts of the other three CCNetwork Liaisons with the work through the National Comprehensive Center. She regularly communicates with her four assigned Regional Centers to gather important information about needs, trends, successes, and stories arising through Regional Centers work with clients and recipients. Ms. Crain also provides technical assistance on improving fiscal reporting to states via conference calls, emails, webinars, and on-site visits for the Center for IDEA Fiscal Reporting (CIFR). Ms. Crain also serves as Project Lead on the Strategic Planning for Continued Recovery initiative.

Dr. Jill Lammert is the Co-Director of the National Comprehensive Center and an Associate Director in the Education Studies practice at Westat. She has 20+ years of experience designing, conducting, and evaluating programs to support education policy and reform, plus providing exceptional capacity-building and evaluation expertise. Dr. Lammert also co-leads the Center to Improve Program and Project Performance, which delivers evaluation technical assistance to Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) grantees to help them measure performance and improve outcomes for students with disabilities.

Elisabeth Lembo serves as an Education Program Specialist in the Office of Program and Grantee Support Services (PGSS) in the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE). Elisabeth (Liz) serves as the Department’s lead of the Strategic Planning for Continued Recovery (SPCR) initiative to support state education agencies (SEAs) as they engage in their own planning and support local education agencies (LEAs) to sustain high leverage, American Rescue Plan (ARP) and other COVID-relief-funded interventions. Liz additionally supports numerous technical assistance initiatives, including Communities of Practice, the Best Practices Clearinghouse, the Technical Assistance Coordination Team (TACT), and the Student Engagement and Attendance Center (SEAC). Before coming to OESE, Elisabeth (Liz) earned her Master’s in Public Administration with a concentration in Public and Nonprofit Management and a focus on rural education and health. Prior to graduate school, Liz taught 2nd grade in Mississippi and New York. She also has experience working at Teach for America-Mississippi’s summer training institute and at the New York City Department of Education in the Office of Teacher Development. A native of New Jersey, Liz completed her undergraduate studies in Washington, DC where she pursued a BA in Government and Art History.

Catherine joined ERS in 2022 and is a leader on ERS' State Practice Area. In this role, she supports ERS’ work to enable the design, implementation, and continuous improvement of effective and ambitious state-level policies that create critical enabling conditions for school and system leaders to transform how they use resources (people, time and money) to support schools and students. Catherine has also supported a range of partnerships in her work at ERS, including conducting resource equity diagnostics for school districts across the country and designing trainings to support states in completing ESSA Resource Allocation Reviews (RAR).

Dr. Ventura Rodriguez joined ERS as a partner in September 2021. Since joining ERS, he has led numerous partnerships with school districts and state education agencies. Recent projects include conducting a resource diagnostic in the Metro Nashville Public Schools to support the alignment of resources to a multi-year strategy, developing an elementary scheduling and staffing guide for the Nebraska Department of Education, supporting Dallas ISD’s Racial Equity Working Group, and partnering with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to support a cohort of seven high schools to redesign their schedules and staffing plans aligned to priorities for student experiences. Ventura also leads ERS' State Practice Area. In this role, he supports ERS’ work to enable the design, implementation, and continuous improvement of effective and ambitious state-level policies that create critical enabling conditions for school and system leaders to transform how they use resources (people, time, and money) to support schools and students.