Paul Dunford currently serves as Chief of the Programmatic Support and Technical Assistance Branch of the Division of Special Education and Early Intervention Services at the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE). Dunford came to MSDE as the Director of Middle School Initiatives in the Division for Leadership Development. He facilitated partnerships with professional organizations and districts promoting and supporting improved teaching and learning. His team responsibilities included The Maryland Principals’ Academy, The Aspiring Principals’ Institute, and The Academy for School Turnaround. With the award of Race to the Top, the Division of Academic Reform and Innovation was created to lead and support statewide reform efforts. Paul was named Director of Cross-Divisional Initiatives responsible for leadership development through The Breakthrough Center, a Statewide System of Support. His work was with chronically low achieving schools, Turnaround Schools and their local school systems. Dunford was the Instructional Director of Middle Schools for Frederick County Public Schools facilitating plans for system-wide middle school reform. He began his career in Massachusetts then teaching in Athens, Greece. After teaching for 10 years he served as middle school assistant principal, curriculum supervisor for Career and Technology Education and middle school principal. He partnered with the Maryland State Education Association (MSEA) through Quality Schools and was nationally recognized for his work. He was a Maryland Distinguished Principal Fellow serving in the Baltimore City Public School System. He was awarded the Washington Post Distinguished Educator Award, a PTA Life Membership and recognized as a National PTA Outstanding Educator and was Maryland Technology Education Teacher of the Year. Dunford serves on the Leadership Institute faculty for the Association of Middle Level Education and is an adjunct professor at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland.

Amy McCart, Ph.D. is an Associate Research Professor with Special Graduate Faculty Status at the University of Kansas. She is the Co-Principal Investigator for the School-wide Integrated Framework for Transformation (SWIFT) Center, which was established in 2012 and is the largest award received in KU history. SWIFT is a national K-8 technical assistance center focused on providing academic and behavioral support for all students, including those with the most extensive needs. Dr. McCart co- directs technical assistance for the SWIFT Center, which combines the strengths of general and special educators in a three-tiered model of instruction designed to meet the needs of all students. Additionally, she is the principal investigator for multiple federal projects through the U.S. Department of Education to support urban schools implementing school-wide positive behavior support. As part of her work with school- wide positive behavior support, she serves as a collaborating partner in the National Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavior Intervention and Support. Dr. McCart worked in a number of urban schools, including the Recovery School District in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools, and the District of Columbia, Washington Public Schools. She was the site director at an agency supporting individuals with low incidence disabilities working to improve quality of life. She is also focused on utilizing agency-focused multi-tiered prevention to support families with mental health needs in poverty and their young children.

Dr. Carol Quirk is the Co-Executive Director of the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education (MCIE). She is a member of the Executive Team and State Facilitator Team Leader for the School-wide Integrated Framework for Transformation (SWIFT) Center, which is a national K-8 technical assistance center focused on providing academic and behavioral support for all students, including those with the most extensive needs. Dr. Quirk coordinates work of the center across operating teams, facilitates state level work in one of the SWIFT states, and coordinates state level technical assistance with other SWIFT State Facilitators. Dr. Quirk has extensive experience in planning instruction for students with disabilities, developing positive behavior supports, promoting collaboration among educators, and providing quality professional development for general and special educators to include students with disabilities. Through her partnership with the Maryland State Department of Education, Dr. Quirk has helped to shape state and local education policy and practice, and has implemented systemic reform in a number of Maryland school systems. She is a graduate of Leadership Maryland, and was named one of the Top 100 Minority Business Entrepreneurs of 2008 for the Maryland, Washington DC, and Virginia region. Dr. Quirk was named to President Obama’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities in 2011. She was recognized as the 2012 Distinguished Alumna by the Johns Hopkins University and received the Brava! Award in 2013 from SmartCEO for exemplary leadership. She received her Ed.D. from The Johns Hopkins University, and her Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees from the University of Connecticut. Previously, she was a Teacher of students with developmental disabilities in Connecticut, a Psychologist in a residential facility in North Carolina, a Technical Assistance Director for early intervention programs in North Carolina, a Consultant to the Philadelphia School System, and the Executive Director of a Baltimore agency providing supported employment services to adults with disabilities.

Dr. Wayne Sailor’s academic pursuits are focused on comprehensive school reform at the elementary and middle school levels. He has done extensive research within the framework of multi-tiered systems of support and response to intervention (MTSS/RTI). Much of this research has been concentrated on schoolwide applications of positive behavior interventions and support. He developed a school reform model called the Schoolwide Applications Model (SAM) which was field tested in Kansas City, Kansas, New Orleans, Louisiana, East Palo Alto, California, and most recently in Washington, DC schools. The success of that school turnaround model led to Dr. Sailor and his colleagues winning the competition to establish the National Center on Schoolwide Inclusive School Reform funded by the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP). As a result Dr. Sailor now directs the Schoolwide Integrated Framework for Transformation (SWIFT) Center at the University of Kansas. This Center provides technical assistance to 64 schools nation-wide spread across 16 school districts within five states. As one of the founders of the Association for Persons with Severe Disabilities (TASH) he has served as a member of its Board of Directors and was President of the organization over a four year span. Dr. Sailor’s most recent book is Unifying Education Systems published in 2013 by Routledge/Taylor and Francis Group. He is a Professor in the Department of Special Education, School of Education, University of Kansas; a Senior Scientist with the Institute for Life Span Studies and Associate Director of the Beach Center on Disability at the University of Kansas. He also holds a Courtesy Professorship with the Department of Applied Behavioral Science, University of Kansas.