Conference Attendees

Christy Moreno

Christy Moreno is a founding member of the National Parents Union and serves on NPU’s National Family Advisory Council. Christy is the Advocacy & Impact Officer at Revolución Educativa, a non-profit organization that works to build the necessary conditions for the advancement of Latino youth. She’s the former Bilingual Director of Advocacy for the Missouri Charter Public School Association where she successfully built state-wide support to achieve the passing of funding equity legislation for public school students in Missouri. Christy owns Moreno Denton Language Services, a firm that specializes in fulfilling effective communication needs in Spanish and English.

Tu Moua Carroz, Ed.D.

Dr. Tu Moua Carroz is the Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services for RJUHSD, overseeing Data, Assessment and Accountability, Teaching and Learning, and Special Services. A seasoned leader, her career spans roles as a teacher, principal, and associate superintendent. Dr. Carroz is dedicated to creating diverse pathways for success, with a sharp focus on high-quality first instruction, academic intervention, and grade-level readiness. Her leadership ensures all students are prepared for post-secondary college and career opportunities. A Milken Educator Award recipient, she holds a Doctorate from UC Berkeley and remains a steadfast advocate for educational equity and advancing student academic achievement.

Lesley Nelms

A seasoned District Administrator with extensive experience in school leadership, federal programs, special education, and dyslexia services, a professional that has a proven record of driving school improvement through data-informed decision-making. Her strategic leadership has consistently led to measurable gains in student achievement and strengthened systems that support success for all learners.

Dana Nerenberg

Dana Nerenberg is a lifelong educator with a passion for literacy. She serves as the Oregon Director of the Center for Early Literacy and Learning Success with Stand for Children. In this role, Dana is designing, building, and supporting the Oregon Demonstration Network - a group of 13 schools across Oregon, to support the effective implementation of the Early Literacy Success Act through principal coaching, professional development for coaches and principals, and Networked Improvement Communities for district leaders, principals, and coaches.

Robert Nomberg

Robert Nomberg is the founding President and CEO of Virginia Learns, where he bridges business and education to modernize Virginia’s public schools. His diverse background spans teaching, school administration, and public policy, including service as an advisor to former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. Previously, he led a local community foundation for over a decade. Robert began his career with Teach For America and New Leaders. He holds degrees from the University of Alabama and the University of Michigan, alongside a Master of Education Administration and a Doctorate in Educational Leadership and Administration from The George Washington University.

Christopher Norwood

Founded in 2013, Bay Area Tutoring Association is the premiere provider of on-site, high-impact tutoring in literacy and math for K–12 students across the San Francisco Bay Area.

Caroline O'Neal

Caroline O’Neal has more than 20 years of experience in educational leadership. As Chief Executive Officer of Reading Assist, she negotiates school contracts and is responsible for all aspects of organizational strategy and the implementation of the Reading Assist Intervention Program. Before joining Reading Assist, Caroline helped Uncommon Schools – one of the most successful charter school networks in the country – open its first middle school in Camden, New Jersey, as Camden Prep’s director of operations.

Dr. Hulya Odabas

Dr. Hulya Odabas is the Chief Strategy Officer at Study Smart Tutors, leading national K–12 tutoring, enrichment, and college access initiatives. A former teacher and school counselor, she specializes in MTSS-aligned tutoring, program implementation, and equity-focused student support. She holds a doctorate in Educational Leadership from Concordia University Irvine, where she researched first-generation student belonging.

Melanie Ojefua

Melanie is the VP of High-Impact Tutoring at ExpandED Schools. Before working at ExpandED Schools, Melanie worked at Achievement First as the Director of 5-8 Math Innovation, where she spent three years developing, implementing, and scaling a culturally responsive middle school math program across a network of schools. Prior to Achievement First, Melanie spent ten years at the NYCDOE, where she worked as a special education teacher; a central office leader who helped lead citywide implementation of the common core standards and engaged schools in collaborative action research and learning; and as a middle school assistant principal.

Christina Oliver

Executive Director of The Reading Institute.

Philip Oreopoulos

Professor

Katharine Pace Miles, Ph.D.

Katharine Pace Miles, Ph.D. is an associate professor at Brooklyn College, City University of New York (CUNY). The Founder and President of The Reading Institute. She is the author of Reading Ready, an explicit and systematic word reading curriculum for kindergarten and first grade students. Dr. Miles is also the co-founder and principal investigator of CUNY Reading Corps, which improves preservice teacher training and provides free high-dosage tutoring to historically underserved NYC students. Dr. Miles completed her doctorate in Educational Psychology: Learning, Development, and Instruction with a sub-specialization in Research on the Acquisition of Literacy with Dr. Linnea C. Ehri.

Janice Page

Dr. Janice Page serves as the Assistant Superintendent of Academics for eStem Public Charter Schools, where she leads academic programs, instructional initiatives, and efforts to improve student achievement. She works closely with school leaders and teachers to strengthen instructional practices, implement evidence-based strategies, and ensure students have access to rigorous learning opportunities. With over 30 years in education, she has served as a teacher, instructional leader, and administrator. Through these experiences, Dr. Page has learned that students will rise to any challenge when educators build meaningful connections and provide clear pathways for success.

Edgar Palacios

Edgar J. Palacios is a nationally recognized advocate for Latino representation in education and Founder & CEO of the Latinx Education Collaborative and Revolución Educativa. He leads a $1.1M multi-entity organization serving nearly 2,000 educators and allies. An MBA graduate, executive coach, and fellowship alumnus, Edgar operates at the intersection of policy, practice, and community. He serves on multiple boards and is an award-winning leader advancing opportunity for Latino youth.

David Parker

David Parker is the Vice President of Education Research at ServeMinnesota, which helped develop and expand high-impact tutoring models powered by AmeriCorps. At ServeMinnesota, David focuses on accelerating educational research into practice via partnerships with researchers and practitioners around the country.

Matt Pasternack

Matt Pasternack is CEO of Once, an early-reading program for Pre-K, kindergarten and 1st grade that upskills school-based support staff (paraprofessionals, aides, assistants) and high school CTE students to deliver daily, one-on-one, in-person, evidence-based, reading tutoring. All instruction is video recorded and instructors receive weekly, live video coaching from the Once team. Once serves 3,500 students in 20 states, has completed 4 ESSA Tier 3 studies, 1 ESSA Tier 2 study, and has an ESSA Tier 1 study in progress. Students receiving 20 hours of Once instruction during a year regularly make 20+ percentile growth on nationally normed assessments.

Alka Pateriya

Alka joined the Council in 2021 as Director of Strategy and Partnerships. Previously, she supported NAEP’s TUDA districts and managed large-scale assessment and data collection projects at Westat. She also supported the Gates Foundation and research partners in the Measures of Effective Teaching project. She later led Tripod Education Partners, helping schools and districts gather feedback from students, parents, and teachers. Alka began her career as a teacher and administrator in the Washington, DC area. She holds an M.Ed. from George Washington University and a B.A. from Northwestern University, with expertise in education strategy.

Alanna Phelan

Alanna Phelan serves as the Senior Vice President of Amplify Tutoring, where she oversees high-impact tutoring solutions for K-6 students. Her team provides research-aligned tutoring materials, program design consulting, training, and direct high-impact tutoring services to students, which have improved outcomes for students across the country. A former classroom teacher and school network leader, Alanna previously led Amplify’s Professional Services team, which provides high-quality professional development and implementation support for teachers and education leaders. She holds a Master’s in Education and an MBA from Stanford University and previously co-founded and led operations and product teams for a tech startup.

Raymond Pierce

Raymond C. Pierce serves as President of the Southern Education Foundation. Since joining SEF in 2018, Pierce has launched a region wide early childhood education network and established a federally funded technical assistance center to assist school districts at addressing education opportunity deficiencies. Pierce co-founded the Center for Outcomes Based Contracting at SEF which facilitates partnerships between education technology companies and school districts in the delivery of high-quality educational services. Pierce earned a Bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University, a Juris Doctorate from Case Western Reserve University School of Law, and a Master’s degree from the Divinity School at Duke University.

Jamie Poskin

Jamie is the Founder & CEO of TeachFX, an AI-powered app where teachers record their classes and then receive positive feedback and support on their pedagogy and use of high-leverage teaching practices. He is a former high school math and English teacher, coach, and athletic director with an MA in Education and MBA from Stanford. He also spent seven years working as an experimental theater artist with The Wooster Group and as the director of his own company.

Sandra Prades-Bertran

Sandra Prades-Bertran is an Early Literacy and Multilingual Education Coach based in Oakland, California. With 11 years of experience in the United States and roots in Barcelona (Spain), she brings a global perspective to her work supporting equitable, research-based literacy instruction. She is passionate about improving outcomes for all learners (especially multilingual learners). Sandra collaborates with educators to strengthen foundational reading practices and instructional coherence. Fluent in multiple languages, she bridges cultures and communities while advocating for high-quality education. She is committed to empowering teachers and ensuring all students develop strong, confident literacy skills.

Henry Price

With 20 years of experience at The Princeton Review and tutor.com as a classroom teacher, tutor, trainer, and Curriculum & Instruction leader, Henry now serves as an expert Academic Solutions Consultant specializing in in-school interventions, with emphasis on High-Dosage Tutoring.

Sarah Putnam

Sarah Putnam is an educational leader with 27 years of service in public education. She serves as Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction for Arlington Public Schools, where she leads efforts to strengthen instructional coherence and support schools. Her recent work has focused on guiding instructional priorities and leading evidence‑based decision making related to literacy, learning acceleration, and the evolving role of technology in teaching and learning. She holds an M.Ed. in Educational Leadership from George Mason University, an M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Virginia, and a B.S. in Elementary and Special Education from Syracuse University.

Justin Reich

Justin is an associate professor of digital media in the Comparative Media Studies/Writing department at MIT and the co-PI of the National Tutoring Observatory. He is the author of Iterate: The Secret to Innovation in Schools and Failure to Disrupt: Why Technology Alone Can’t Transform Education, and he is the host of the TeachLab Podcast. His writings have been published in Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Washington Post, The Atlantic, and other scholarly journals and public venues. He started his career as a high school history teacher, and coach of wrestling and outdoor adventure activities.

Jessica Reid Sliwerski

Driven by the knowledge that every child can learn to read and that there is a proven way to teach them, Jessica co-founded Ignite Reading to deliver that instruction at scale. Jessica served as assistant principal of Success Academy Charter Schools and a literacy specialist at The Urban Assembly. She co-founded and was chief academic officer and chief product officer of LightSail Education, an adaptive literacy software company, and was CEO of Open Up Resources, a national nonprofit focused on increasing equity in education. Her work has been featured in the documentary films The Lottery and The Right to Read.

Chelsea Reinhard

Chelsea Reinhard was born and raised in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Over the past decade, Chelsea has dedicated herself to shaping young minds, teaching kindergarten, 3rd grade, and 4th grade, as well as serving as a high-impact tutoring coach to support students’ growth in fundamental reading skills. Chelsea enjoys Colorado by hiking, fishing, and enjoying other outdoor activities. At home, she’s a proud boy mom to a 3-year-old and 1-year-old who bring joy and unforgettable experiences to family life. Balancing her roles as an educator and mother, Chelsea is committed to making each moment full of purpose and fun.

Ana Ribeiro

Ana Trindade Ribeiro is a Research Project Lead at the National Student Support Accelerator. Her research interests sit at the intersection of education policy and behavioral sciences, using a mix of machine learning, causal inference, and field and laboratory experiments to investigate causes and solutions to inequality in students’ outcomes. Her recent work has focused on the design of student evaluations and policies to reduce unequal behavior and outcomes in education.

Bryan Richardson

Bryan is a Senior Program Officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation where he leads investments for the K-12 Education R&D team focused on education technology and artificial intelligence. These investments aim to make research and development in K-12 education cheaper and easier with a special focus on ensuring high quality learning experiences in math for Black, Latino, and all students from low-income backgrounds.

Cortney Richardson

Cortney Richardson, a multifaceted leader, is dedicated to transforming lives and communities through education, mentorship, and discipleship. As a founding tutor at Peer Power, he helped build the infrastructure for its growth, including in-school tutoring and mentoring in public high schools, ACT Prep University, and workforce development. As CEO, he has streamlined operations, expanded capacity, launched an out-of-state site, and strengthened impact. Since 2004, Peer Power has employed over 2,200 youth, delivered more than 1.5 million hours, and invested over $20 million.

Carly Robinson

Carly Robinson is a Senior Researcher at Stanford University and the Director of Research of the National Student Support Accelerator. Before joining Stanford, she was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Annenberg Institute at Brown University. Her research interests sit at the intersection of education, psychology, and policy. In particular, she draws on insights from social psychology and behavioral science to design and experimentally test interventions to improve relational, engagement, and learning outcomes for students.

Isabel Sacks

Director of Communications at Stanford Accelerator for Learning.

Alan Safran

Alan Safran is Co-Founder and CEO of the nonprofit Saga, founded in 2014. Saga has raised $140 million to help students nationwide and internationally get the benefits of high impact tutoring. Alan has a 30 year career in public education, at the state and local levels, including serving as Massachusetts’ Deputy Commissioner of Education. He led the Match Charter Public School network in Boston for 9 years, where he was the co-designer of the school's high dosage tutoring program (2004), the first ever in a US public school. Alan has degrees from George Washington University (JD) and Princeton (BA).

Jamilah Sanchez

Dr. Jamilah Sanchez is the Oakland Unified School District’s Director of Early Literacy Program. With a rich background in education and a passion for literacy development, Dr. Sanchez brings both experience and vision to this critical role. Dr. Sanchez’s journey began in San Francisco, where she worked with students with learning disabilities. “Teaching reading and writing to students with learning disabilities became my entry point into the critical world of foundational literacy,” she explained. This experience shaped her understanding of how essential targeted literacy instruction is for all learners.

Jen Saylor

Jen Saylor serves as the Director of the Michigan Department of Education’s Office of Curriculum and Instruction and has previously served as a visual art and reading teacher, instructional coach, and school and district administrator. The Office of Curriculum and Instruction is focused on instructional coherence to ensure a seamless learning experience for students throughout their school day, across grade levels, and in all content areas.

Sarah Scott Frank

Sarah Scott Frank, PhD is the Founder and CEO of OpenLiteracy, a national tutoring organization dedicated to improving K–6 reading outcomes through evidence-based, high-impact tutoring. A former professor, literacy researcher, and teacher educator, Sarah brings deep expertise in literacy development, education policy, and systems-level school improvement. Sarah holds a PhD in Language, Literacy, and Culture from the University of Michigan and an Ed.M. in Language and Literacy from Harvard University. She has spent her career working at the intersection of research, practice, and policy, with a focus on translating evidence into real-world impact for students and schools.

Saveth Seang

I currently serve as the Tier III Curriculum Program Administrator for SFUSD, where I support evidence-based academic and literacy interventions for students with disabilities. My work centers on strengthening inclusive practices through collaboration with special education teachers, school leaders, and multidisciplinary teams, with an emphasis on assessment-informed instruction and high-quality intervention.

Colby Self

Dr. Colby Self has been with the Texas Education Agency (TEA) since June 2021, serving as the Director of Texas Tutoring Supports. He brings over 20 years of experience from Pflugerville ISD, where he was principal of Caldwell Elementary School from July 2012 to June 2021. Dr. Self also held roles as assistant principal and began his career as an athletic trainer and teacher.

Dr. Self holds a Ph.D. in School Improvement from Texas State University, along with a Master's Degree in Secondary Education and a Bachelor's Degree in Biology and Health Education from Stephen F. Austin State University.

Justin Serrano

Justin Serrano is the founder and CEO of Littera Education. Justin has spent his entire career working in education businesses, managing large-scale tutoring service operations, running a professional learning company that provided job-embedded professional learning for Title I school teachers and leaders, and, most recently, holding senior leadership roles in large-scale assessment, data analytics, and learning management system (LMS) companies.

Nabil Shahin

As a teacher and administrator for over two decades, Nabil has left an indelible mark in the communities he has served in San Jose Unified, Sunnyvale School District, and with the Santa Clara County Office of Education. Nabil leads teams that help district and county staff use data to inform support structures, identify areas for instructional improvement, and promote student equity. He combines expertise in effective instructional practices and educational leadership to build effective cross-agency teams and promote innovative cross-systems platforms like FosterVision, ServiceLink, and DataZone to support youth placed at risk in our educational systems.

Jenny Siegel

Jenny is the Program Director at the San Francisco Education Fund, a nonprofit that advances equitable education by providing quality learning programs, community support through volunteers, and transformative financial resources to teachers, students and schools within SF Unified. She oversees the Ed Fund's high impact literacy tutoring program that has provided HIT to over 6,000 students in San Francisco Unified. The Ed Fund fundraises for tutoring programs for SFUSD and then also helps schools with tutoring implementation. Their focus is currently providing HIT within literacy to elementary school students.

Jesse Silberberg

Jesse Silberberg leads student-facing investments within Overdeck Family Foundation’s School Success portfolio, which aims to increase the number of K–8 students demonstrating meaningful growth and proficiency in literacy and math. Before joining the Foundation, he built Minerva University’s coaching team and held go-to-market, learning strategy, and product roles at Arizona State University, Google X, IDEO, Amazon, and several early-stage edtech startups. He began his career at Deloitte, advising education nonprofits on strategy and growth. Jesse earned an M.B.A. from Berkeley Haas and a B.A. from Dartmouth College.

Kay Sims

Kay Sims is a dedicated educator with 20 years of service in Huntsville City Schools. As the instructor of the HCS Education and Training program, she is passionate about teaching and mentoring aspiring educators while developing a rigorous curriculum that fosters student learning and engagement. In addition to her instructional role, she serves as an advisor for Family, Career and Community Leaders of America; Future Teachers of Alabama and Educators Rising where she advocates for educators and models professionalism for her students.

Mindy Sjoblom

Mindy founded OnYourMark with over 20 years of experience in education. She is a TFA alumna with deep teaching and school leadership experience. She served as Founding Dean of Relay Graduate School of Education’s Chicago campus and later joined Charter School Growth Fund as an Entrepreneur in Residence, launching OnYourMark to support schools in delivering individualized instruction grounded in the Science of Reading. Inspired by her youngest son’s late dyslexia diagnosis, Mindy is passionate about ensuring all students receive systematic, explicit reading instruction. Under her leadership, OnYourMark serves thousands of children nationwide through its High Impact Tutoring model.

Ryann Skrypec

With seventeen years of teaching experience, I am passionate about guiding middle school students through the world of English Language Arts. I've been part of the high-impact tutoring program for several years, witnessing firsthand the difference personalized support can make in student success. Outside the classroom, I enjoy traveling, camping, and coaching, all of which keep me energized and inspired. These experiences help me connect with students in meaningful ways. I'm excited to be part of this conference to celebrate and share the power of high-impact tutoring in transforming learning outcomes for all students.

Rachel Slama

Rachel Slama is Associate Director of the Future of Learning Lab at Cornell University, where she leads strategic partnerships and research at the intersection of education technology and workforce development. She supports an interdisciplinary team designing, deploying, and evaluating emerging learning technologies. Slama is a co-investigator on the National Tutoring Observatory, an initiative building the world’s largest open-access tutoring dataset to advance research on scalable, AI-supported learning. Slama partners with schools and districts, researchers, and developers to design responsible tutoring systems. She is particularly interested in how data-driven insights and educator-AI collaboration can expand access to effective personalized learning.

Elizabeth Slavitt

Head of Tutor Operations

John-Paul Smith

John-Paul Smith is the Executive Director of North Carolina Education Corps (NCEC), a nonprofit dedicated to accelerating student learning and strengthening communities through partnerships with local schools. Since 2021, NCEC has recruited, trained, and coached over 1,600 corps members to deliver high-impact literacy tutoring to more than 30,000 K-5 students across over 30 North Carolina school districts and 200 Title I schools.

Before joining NCEC, John-Paul worked with nonprofits focused on civic engagement and economic development. He lives in Raleigh, NC, with his wife and their golden retriever.

Daniela Solley

Daniela Solley is an Education Programs Consultant with the California Department of Education, specializing in expanded learning and literacy. Her work is grounded in the belief that policy and student outcomes are only as connected as the people and systems between them. A former teacher, writing consultant, and administrator and 2021 Placer County Teacher of the Year, she brings a systems level lens to implementation. Daniela supports 14 Northern California counties and serves as Project Champion for High Impact Tutoring and Outcomes Based Contracting. She focuses on weaving together policy, practice, and people to build systems strong enough to hold.

Darcy Soto

Darcy Soto is the Director of Learning Acceleration for Portland Public Schools, where she leads initiatives to address unfinished learning and ensure equitable access to grade-level content. Her career began as a volunteer English literacy instructor and evolved through teaching, coaching, and administrative roles in Central Mexico and the Portland Metropolitan Area. With a strong focus on racial equity, Darcy partners with schools and families to eliminate barriers and create high-impact learning opportunities for underserved students. Her leadership is grounded in service, family partnership, and a commitment to student success.

Laura Spruce

Laura Spruce is the Literacy Coordinator for Harrison School District 2 in Colorado Springs, where she supports K–12 literacy systems and instruction. With 16 years in education, including over a decade in district leadership, she specializes in early literacy, implementation science, and translating research into practical, actionable strategies for teachers. Her team's current work is grounded in a commitment to equitable outcomes, with a current focus on ensuring over 80% of fifth-grade students read on grade level with no gaps for students in priority groups.