RAAD Team

As a team, we bring many valuable skill sets to best serve our district and community. Our broad range of experience and areas of expertise contribute to the support we provide in the district.

Donna Cross, Executive Director of Research, Assessment, Accountability, and Data (RAAD): Donna designs and conducts applied research studies and program evaluations of high-priority strategic goals and critical district programs, working alongside district department leaders and Northwestern partners (NEERA) to assess areas of success and areas for improvement. She supports district leaders and school leadership teams in using data and evidence to drive continuous improvement. She is responsible for the implementation of districtwide assessment (STAR and i-Ready) and develops professional learning, resources, and guidelines to ensure consistent implementation across schools. She is also responsible for all mandated reporting at both the state and federal level.

Cindy Gonzalez, Performance Management & Assessment Analyst: Cindy administers State Assessments (ACCESS, IAR, DLM, ISA, KIDS) and supports with district assessments (STAR and I-Ready). She supports test coordinators, building leaders, and teachers in implementing testing to the required student populations, analyzes test result data, and manages the data integration of approved instructional applications for computer learning. Cindy is also responsible for in-depth data analysis of state-level assessments and is the primary lead on data quality control.

Chris Koutavas, Data Management Specialist: Chris leads the efforts of data reporting through both the internal and external data dashboards. Chris provides in-depth data analysis for program evaluation, internal research, quarterly Board reports, and the SDRP committees. Chris also manages data automations from various platforms in order to ensure all data is dynamic and up to date. Chris also provides ad hoc reporting for district and school-level administrators and is responsible for data quality control.

We collaborate with multiple community partners to improve our practices as we share insights, work together on projects and, most importantly, share the same commitment to helping our students succeed in their academic progress. The following is a brief description of just two of our partnerships that impact the research in our district.

Northwestern-Evanston Education Research Alliance (NEERA) - A partnership between Northwestern University, District 65, and District 202 that routinely discusses current projects, goals, and analysis of shared data.

EvanSTEM - A partnership focused on providing STEM program accessibility and engagement to students who have traditionally been underperformed/underrepresented in this field. Some collaborators in this partnership include Family Focus, Evanston Public Library, The City of Evanston, among others.

We place high importance on the success of research projects in the district because of the valuable insight we can gain to better improve our practice for the benefit of our students, families, staff, and community. Below are some projects we are currently collaborating on with our partners:

William T. Grant Foundation funded projects - With much collective effort, NEERA has been awarded one of four institutional challenge grants from the William T. Grant Foundation which provides the necessary resources to carry out multiple research projects and institutional investments for our research-practice partnership.  As part of the award, we have several multi-year research studies we are working collaboratively on with NEERA partners. Projects include The NEERA Teacher Engagement Project and The Middle-to High-School Transition: Designing Resources and Supports for Students of Color.

I4All Project - A collaboration that includes community partners to best understand and update Evanston’s OST infrastructure to make sure it provides equitable engagement and support for 6th-8th grade youth in exploring interests in TEA (Technology, Engineering, and the Arts).