Team
Allison Schweiger, Marketing Director
Allison earned her BS in Human Development and Family Studies from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She then worked in retail management before joining WCEPS in 2011. Allison has since held various roles within WCEPS, always working to better serve educators and increase our impact as an organization.
Bethany Parker, Director of Operations
Bethany earned her BA in Journalism-Strategic Communications from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her MA in Leadership in Student Affairs from the University of St. Thomas. Prior to joining WCEPS she worked for many years in various advising roles, focusing on creating and improving programs for student success.
Mark Blitz, PhD, CALL Project Director
Mark Blitz is the Project Director of the Comprehensive Assessment of Leadership for Learning (CALL) at WCEPS. CALL is an online school–wide leadership assessment and feedback system, and Mark has been involved with its development since its inception. Mark has also helped to develop other versions of CALL and services to support these systems: the WIDA School Improvement System (WIDA SIS), which measures and supports leadership for teaching Multilingual Learners; the Four Domains CALL System with WestEd; and the Leadership for Learning Coaching Process. Mark received his PhD in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Before moving to Madison, he was a middle and high school teacher in New York City, where he received his Masters of Arts in Teaching from Teachers College, Columbia University.
Matt Messinger, Executive Director
Prior to WCEPS, Matt spent seven years working at for-profit educational technology firms, including four years at Renaissance Learning, Inc. Earlier in his career, Matt worked for three years as a college counselor at Eastside College Prep, a school for low-income students. Matt earned his BA from Stanford University.
Yvonne Williams, Director of Educator Engagement
Yvonne is the Director of MLL Educator Engagement at WCEPS. She collaborates closely with LEAs to discuss educator goals, needs, and develops the best path to topics that best align to those goals. Prior to WCEPS, she spent 3 years with WIDA, as a Professional Learning Specialist working in both international and domestic settings. She has worked in education for 20+ years, teaching a variety of language learners from grades Kinder to High School. She also worked as a district ELL trainer, ELL instructional coach, family literacy coordinator, and a HS parent involvement coordinator. She earned her bachelor's in business administration from Angelo State University in Texas and her Masters in Bilingual Education from NOVA Southeastern University, Florida. Her endorsements include TESL, Bilingual, and Computer literacy.
Sara Christopherson, WebbAlign Study Director
Sara's background is in the sciences, education, and science writing. Sara earned a MS in Science Education from University of Wisconsin–Madison and a BA in Biology from Oberlin College. She began working with Dr. Norman Webb on alignment studies in 2006.
Hannah Graham, Director of K-12 Professional Learning – WebbAlign
Prior to joining the WebbAlign team, Hannah Graham spent the last decade focusing on teacher education as an instructor and pre-service teacher supervisor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Bank Street College of Education in New York, a curriculum consultant with multiple programs in Chicago, Illinois, and as a professional development leader with in-service teachers through the YMCA of the USA and UChicago Impact. A former middle school classroom teacher, Hannah brings her understanding of educator decision-making processes to her work with educators, schools, and districts through WebbAlign. Hannah holds a M.S.Ed from the Bank Street College of Education, a M.S.W. from the University of Chicago, and is in the process of completing her PhD in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Laura Lang, Associate Director of the AIW Institute
Laura has been an educator for over 20 years, working as a high school English Language Arts and Reading teacher and as an instructional coach for urban, rural and suburban schools. In addition to working with WCEPS, Laura teaches Educational Leadership and Instructional Coaching courses at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She earned her BSEd from Northwestern University, her MSEd in Reading Instruction from National Louis University and her PhD in Curriculum and Instruction (Literacy Studies) from UW–Madison.
Suzanne Johar, Associate Director of Educator Engagement
Suzanne is the Associate Director of Educator Engagement at WCEPS. In this role, she works with schools and districts on implementing the WIDA MODEL interim assessment and also supports the WCEPS professional learning department. Prior to joining the WCEPS team, she was a Professional Learning Specialist at WIDA for 4 years where she both designed and delivered WIDA workshops. She has been in the field of education for 16+ years and has taught in a variety of K–12 contexts both domestically and internationally. She also has worked with pre–service teachers as an Assistant Professor in a teacher preparation program and was an education consultant assisting school leadership teams in implementing targeted strategies for school improvement. Suzanne holds a BS in Elementary Education from the University of South Dakota and an MA in Teaching English as a Second Language from Hamline University in Minnesota.
Amy King, Assistant Director of Educator Engagement
Amy King has more than 20 years of experience in the field of English language teaching and learning both in the US and overseas. Before joining WCEPS, Ms. King was a Senior Professional Learning Specialist at WIDA for more than six years. She taught ESL in K–12 public schools, private language schools and adult education programs. Internationally, she has taught in both Slovakia and South Korea. In Banska Bystrica, she was a visiting lecturer at Mateja Bela University. In Seoul, she worked at Shin–il High School as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant and at the Foreign Language Institute of Yonsei University. She was an English Language Fellow at Hanoi Metropolitan University in Vietnam through a program sponsored by the US State Department. She holds a BS in Speech and an MS in Journalism from Northwestern University near Chicago. She earned a TESOL Certificate from American University in Washington, DC and a Multiple–Subject Teaching Credential from National University in San Diego. In addition to certificates in Blended Learning, Microlearning and E–Learning, she earned a Master of Instructional Design from the Association of Talent Development. She is currently working on a MS in Educational and Instructional Technology also through National University.
Board of Directors
Michael Falk, Board Chair, Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation
Courtney Bell, Ex-officio Member, Director, WCER
Diana Hess, Ex-officio Member, Dean, UW–Madison School of Education
Tom Kalinske, Chairman, Global Education Learning
Deborah Kerr, CEO, Lead Greatly, LLC
Jeff Russell, Dean of Continuing Studies at UW–Madison
Joshua P. Starr, CEO, PDK International
