About Wexford

Wexford Staff

Sheila L. Cassidy
Executive Director

Ms. Cassidy is the founder of Wexford and has 30 years experience as a researcher- evaluator and developer. She is committed to equity and excellence in education for all students with a focus on the traditionally underserved, particularly children of color, language minority students, students from low-income families, and students with special needs. Ms. Cassidy was a teacher in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Compton, California, and an administrator of bilingual programs in Lawndale, California. She has owned her own research, development and evaluation agency since 1978, and founded Wexford in 1996.

Ms. Cassidy received her bachelor’s degree in mathematics and history from the University of Southern California (USC), her master’s in education and mathematics from Temple University in Philadelphia, and completed her doctoral coursework at USC in curriculum change and evaluation. She has lifetime credentials in mathematics, history, and administrative services.

As a developer of programs for teachers and students, Ms. Cassidy has led the development of the Wexford InvestigatingAutism online professional development courses over the last four years. Ms. Cassidy created the TEAMS Distance-Learning model for satellite-delivery to elementary and middle school students, their teachers and parents. This became one of the largest distance learning programs in the nation, supporting urban and rural school districts. Additionally, she was a co-author of Teaching English Naturally, an ESL program published by Addison-Wesley.

Ms. Cassidy co-planned and facilitated the Distance Education Forum, the Distributed Education Forum, and the Educators Summit on Evaluation of Technology Integration and Distributed Education, sponsored by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement in the U.S. Department of Education. She is the author and co-author of a number of articles, including “Developing a Vision for Distance Education in the 21st Century.”

Ms. Cassidy has assisted agencies in program development (planning, design, funding), implementation and research-evaluation. She has conducted research and evaluation for local, state, regional and national agencies and programs. She has been the primary investigator on Title I, Title VII, Star Schools, Technology Innovation Challenge, Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to use Technology (PT3), and NSF projects. Ms. Cassidy was the Co-Director of the Wexford PT3*L3 Project from the U.S. Department of Education.

A supporter of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston, Massachusetts, Ms. Cassidy has been a member of the President’s Leadership Council since 2006.
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Martha Alvarez-Martini, Ph.D.
Co-Director, Professional Development and Family Education Academy

Dr. Alvarez-Martini develops and conducts professional development, curriculum development, and evaluation at K-12 and university levels. Her area of expertise is in language and literacy, and she provides training to support English Learners’ (ELs) educational programs, early childhood education and early literacy including family support of early literacy. Currently she is part of the Wexford team developing autism training for early childhood educators. She is also providing technical assistance to the Los Angeles County Office of Education and Orange County Department of Education with a state reading program for ELs. In addition, she provides training for teachers who are working toward meeting state and federal requirements on qualified teaching experience with ELs.

Dr. Alvarez-Martini participated as a member of the Bilingual Methodology Validity Study Panel and the Standard Setting Panel sponsored by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing and National Evaluation Systems. She is also a member of the Wexford National Quality Assurance Board that reviews products to determine their quality and usability. She is the lead evaluator of the Chinese Foreign Language Assistance Project in the ABC School District in Los Angeles County.

Dr. Alvarez-Martini has more than 30 years of experience as an educator, teaching at the pre-school through university levels. Dr. Alvarez-Martini has served as district and county coordinator of programs and services for English Learners. She was a Visiting Educator in the California Department of Education to give technical assistance to school districts in the area of English Learners’ programs. During her tenure as a district coordinator she implemented Title VII Federal grants in the areas of Preschool Education, Family Literacy, and Two-Way Immersion Projects.

Dr. Alvarez-Martini was an Assistant Professor at Chapman University in the School of Education - Multiple Subjects Program. She taught courses in literacy development, second language acquisition, and multicultural education. She coordinated a career ladder project for school districts’ instructional aides. She has written curriculum for classroom use for EL programs and training manuals for teacher preparation programs with ELs. She authored an elementary grade supplementary textbook integrating literature, science, and social science, for Specially Designed Academic Instruction in English (SDAIE) classrooms.

She has a bachelor of arts in Spanish, a master of science in curriculum and instruction, and a doctorate in education with specialization in learning, language and literacy from the University of Southern California. Dr. Alvarez-Martini was a recipient of a Title VII Fellowship for her doctoral work, received a scholarship to study children’s literature in Spain, and received a Hispanic Leadership Award. She co-authored Rainbow Collection, an English as a Second Language Program that merited the WORLDDIDAC Bronze Award in 1988 at an international fair held in Basilea, Switzerland.
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André Blouin
Director, Online Systems Development

André Blouin works with Wexford on the development of online database and advanced technology projects. At Wexford, he has designed and implemented the Optimal Accountability Online System (Optimal AOS), a web-based directory of services, staff and contracts for Non Public Agencies providing services within California’s Southwest SELPA.

Prior to joining Wexford, Mr. Blouin was involved with numerous web-based database and advanced technology projects in the private sector. For a number of years, Mr. Blouin worked in the pharmaceutical arena developing database systems used for FDA reporting. Later he held the position of Information Technology Director for a Massachusetts-based pharmaceutical company, managing the organization’s IT resources and technical staff.

Mr. Blouin has worked as project manager designing and implementing networked, multi-state banking applications. Other management and software development projects involved developing customer-branded, online ordering systems for an online supplier of computer hardware and software.

While living in Victoria, British Columbia, Mr. Blouin worked for 15 years with at-risk teens: running a neighborhood center, working as a counselor within an alternative school, and serving as a corrections officer in an Outward Bound program.

He has an undergraduate degree in finance from the University of Massachusetts - Amherst and graduate work in computer science from the University of Victoria in British Columbia and the University of Massachusetts - Lowell.
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Tammy Carajan
Project Coordinator

Ms. Carajan coordinates meetings, events and project activities. She provides support to all Wexford projects, entering and summarizing data, producing and editing documents, communicating with clients, and organizing project records.

Ms. Carajan has 20 years administrative experience in both corporate and medical fields, including her own business.   With a background in communications, she successfully manages a variety of projects simultaneously.  She has experience in personnel coordination, budget management, and website development, as well as fundraising activities for a local chamber of commerce.   
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Cash Cassidy
Project and Technology Assistant

Mr. Cassidy recently joined Wexford as project assistant after graduating from Pioneer High School in Whittier in 2005. Since graduating, Mr. Cassidy has taken classes in computer hardware and software, and is looking forward to a career in computer technology. Currently, Mr. Cassidy assists with general office work, data organization and compilation, as well as administrative support.
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Fred Cassidy
Director, Special Projects

Mr. Cassidy has been part of the InvestigatingAutism development team over the last four years. Previously, he was a public high school teacher in California for 23 years. He spent 11 years teaching at Compton High School prior to its takeover by the state of California. He taught psychology, and initiated the first two-year program in high school psychology in the United States. He also taught child, physiological, and general psychology at Compton College for several years.

At Leuzinger High School in Lawndale, California, in the Centinela Valley High School District, Mr. Cassidy taught English, psychology, driver education, and journalism over a 12-year period. He served as head of the English department for two years. He has volunteered his services for the last decade to work with immigrant and low-income students to prepare and support them in their goals to attend college.

Mr. Cassidy has a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in psychology from USC and Pepperdine University, respectively, along with a master’s in secondary education from USC. He also has a lifetime secondary teaching credential and a health and safety credential.

Having retired from public education in 2004, Mr. Cassidy continues his long-time work of assisting students from low-income families to go to college, providing them with college information, college visits, financial aid and scholarship application support.

At Wexford Mr. Cassidy directs Wexford special projects, including those of direct support to students. He is chief editor of Wexford publications and has been involved in the development of Wexford’s InvestigatingAutism online courses.
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Sharon Dorsey, Ph.D.
Director, Center for Leadership and High Quality Education (CLHQE)

With over 38 years of experience, Sharon most recently served as the director of the national Strengthening and Sustaining Teachers (SST) initiative, housed at the University of Washington. It is aimed at creating local teacher development that builds coherency across teacher preparation, new teacher induction, and on-going professional development through local partnerships of teachers’ unions, school districts, and teacher preparation institutions. Privately funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Gates Foundation, the GE Foundation, and the Ford Foundation, the initiative was sponsored and monitored by five national organizations - NCTAF, TURN, IEI, the University of Washington and Bank Street College of Education.

For 30 years, Sharon worked in the Columbus (Ohio) Public Schools serving in several different positions: Director of a three-year U.S. Secretary of Education’s Innovation in Education Fund grant, Testing and Assessment Specialist, Language Arts and Reading Resource Teacher, and Classroom Teacher.

She received her undergraduate degree from Bowling Green State University and her MA and Ph.D. from The Ohio State University. She served as an instructor at Harvard University Graduate School of Education’s Institute on Diverse Systems of Assessment, the University of Dayton, and The Ohio State University. She was a longitudinal researcher for Apple (Computers) Classrooms of Tomorrow (ACOT). She has held leadership positions in a variety of state and national literacy, reading, arts and technology organizations.
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Lisa Evans, Ph.D.
Director of Research

Mrs. Evans brings 14 years of experience as a practitioner, researcher, and industry professional in the field of educational technology. She is currently leading Wexford’s research and evaluation of a multi-state Star Schools project awarded to the Ohio Board of Regents, as well as an NSF-funded grant and a statewide educational technology initiative.

Her past work includes evaluation of multiple PT3 grants as well as one of the RTECs funded by the U.S. Department of Education. She has served as adjunct faculty at the University of Virginia and Marshall University Graduate College, teaching both face-to-face and online courses. Prior to pursuing her doctorate, Mrs. Evans worked as the project manager for Classroom Prodigy, an online service for K-12 schools.

She received her bachelor's degree in psychology from U.C.L.A., her master's in educational communication and technology from New York University, and her Ph.D. in instructional technology from the University of Virginia.
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Rita Gabbey
Business Specialist

Mrs. Gabbey holds an Administrative Degree from the Newtownards Technical College in Northern Ireland, as well as other foreign studies abroad, where she also acquired conversational fluency in German and Dutch. A naturalized U.S. citizen, she has over 30 years of experience in business services including bookkeeping, human resources and workers compensation.

As an expert in payroll services, Mrs. Gabbey manages the bookkeeping at Wexford, as well as accounts payable and accounts receivable. Mrs. Gabbey coordinates all travel arrangements at Wexford and is part of the support group for all of the Wexford Staff.
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Nancy Gadzuk, Ed.D.
Director, Online Courses and Quality Assurance

Dr. Gadzuk is senior researcher focusing on two areas:

• autism
• the effective uses and integration of innovative technologies into the teaching and learning process, particularly in science and mathematics

At Wexford, Dr. Gadzuk has been the primary writer and a developer of InvestigatingAutism online course. She also has major responsibility for conducting the National Quality Assurance Process for projects being evaluated by Wexford.

Prior to joining Wexford in 2006 Dr. Gadzuk was president of Edcentric, an evaluation consulting company, for more than a decade. She has evaluated U.S. Department of Education-funded Star Schools, Technology Innovation Challenge and Ready to Teach projects, as well as National Science Foundation instructional materials development projects. She has been an instructional designer of interactive video in the private sector and at Gallaudet University in the public sector, where she developed language-accessible materials for hearing-impaired learners.

She has been an inner-city teacher in the Boston Public Schools, a supervisor of student teachers in public and private schools, and has taught education courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Dr. Gadzuk has a master’s degree in educational technology from the University of Maryland - College Park and a doctorate in instructional leadership with a focus on psycholinguistics and reading from the University of Massachusetts - Amherst.
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Deborah Jolly, Ed.D.
Chief Development Officer, Director of Governmental Relations, and Director, Center for Leadership and High Quality Education (CLHQE)

Dr. Jolly is Wexford's Chief Development Officer (CDO) and Senior Researcher who directs Wexford’s Texas satellite office and as CDO supports the continued expansion of the Wexford client base both nationally and internationally. In addition, she is the lead researcher on Wexford initiatives that involve school reform and change, college entry for minority students, incentive pay, special needs populations and educational technology. She is a member of the Wexford InvestigatingAutism development team. She is also charged with governmental relations work both at the state and national level, and holds a seat on the Wexford Quality Assurance Board and Wexford's Institutional Review Board.

Dr. Jolly joined Wexford in 2006 from Texas A&M University. While at A&M for nine years, she held numerous leadership and administrative positions, most recently as director of intergovernmental relations, and supported funding initiatives through the Office of Research for the College of Education & Human Development.  Prior to this, Dr. Jolly was vice president of a U.S. Department of Education National Regional Educational Laboratory (Southwest Educational Development Laboratory/SEDL) and for over 10 years served in various leadership roles with SEDL.

Before moving to Texas she was an Area Director for the St. Louis County Special School District, one of the largest incorporated special school districts in the country, where she was an area administrator charged with introducing large-scale change efforts.  She has been a special-needs teacher, administrator, private business owner, private school owner, has published extensively as a principal investigator, and is a founding board member of numerous educational associations.

In addition, Dr. Jolly has served on a host of state and national committees, and has been consultant to school districts, research institutions, and departments of education as well as private industry. Throughout Dr. Jolly’s career she has authored over 300 local, state, national and international publications and presentations in the areas of technology and telecommunications, rural and urban schools, leadership and change processes.

Dr. Jolly received her B.S. in education (educational psychology) from Southern Illinois University, an M.A. in education (special education) from St. Louis University and her doctorate (educational administration) from Southern Illinois University.
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Brigitte McBride
Director, Strategic Development & Compliance

Over the last four years, Ms. McBride has served as the team leader of Wexford’s development work related to autism and currently leads the marketing initiative for the InvestigatingAutism online professional development program. Additionally, Wexford relies on Ms. McBride’s work as a strategic business planner to assist the executive director in formulating strategies for the development of new business ventures and the organization’s continuing evolution. A values-based leader and innovative problem-solver, she champions quality improvements and strategic initiatives, driving visioning, marketing, branding, communications and operations. Ms. McBride leads human research protections at Wexford and serves as administrator and member of its Institutional Review Board. She is charged with ensuring corporate compliance with governing principles, laws, regulations and standards of professional practice.

Ms. McBride is the lead evaluator of a federally-funded high school reform program transitioning 10 comprehensive senior high schools into 21 with varied smaller learning community implementations. Additionally, as the senior project manager, she was essential to the creation and success of a pioneering autism project, with an ongoing mission that supports collaboration between school districts and nonpublic agencies. This project develops systems and resources to address accountability and capacity development issues, including technology and staff development solutions based on research and best practices for children with autism spectrum disorders.

Ms. McBride has worked with Wexford’s executive director intermittently since 1993 conducting funding, research, evaluation, strategic development and technical assistance for a myriad of programs fostering educational equity and excellence. She was integral to Wexford’s start-up as its managing director, establishing critical infrastructures and systems, building internal capacity and sustainability that laid a solid foundation for rapid growth.

Ms. McBride’s current role builds on more than 16 years of cross-functional managerial and business acumen and assets honed in public and private sector industries. She was a business management analyst and reengineering consultant, and an IT operations manager for a multi-state financial institution. She won a Streamlining Operations Systems award for her efforts, and fast-tracked a cutting-edge Internet banking and bill payment product. Ms. McBride holds a bachelor’s of science degree with honors in business administration from the USC Marshall School of Business.

Committed to children's rights, Ms. McBride volunteers as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) for abused and neglected, court-dependent children. She participated in state recertification site visits and CASA training speaker panels. She continues to engage in ongoing education and training regarding the needs of at-risk children. She recently completed coursework in the design and analysis of behavioral research and is certified in Life Space Crisis Intervention (LSCI), a strength-based therapeutic counseling strategy.
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Dr. J. Davíd Ramirez, Ph.D.
Senior Researcher and Evaluator, Issues of Cultural and Linguistic Diversity

Dr. Ramirez is a nationally recognized researcher, along with being a former teacher, counselor, school psychologist, professor, and university dean. His program, evaluation, and research experience spans several areas: child development/state preschool, desegregation, migrant education, immigrant education, bilingual education, home/school/community collaboration, special education, integration of technology in education for diverse populations, alcohol and other drug use prevention, community college, adult literacy, school-to-work, juvenile justice systems, seasonal agricultural workers, and U.S. foreign aid technical training programs.

At Wexford, Dr. Ramirez has been a writer and developer of the InvestigatingAutism series, as well as being the developer of a new course and technical assistance on Identification, Placement and Strategies for Students from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Populations.

Additionally, Dr. Ramirez works with student, parent, and community groups as well as staff from local, county, state, and federal education and non-education agencies within the United States, Mexico, Central and South America, China, Korea, and Africa. He is a specialist in the evaluation of education programs for traditionally underserved students, and works with local schools and districts to design and implement diversity responsive accountability systems. Dr. Ramirez’s most recent publication is, “Making the Invisible, Visible: Designing Comprehensive Diversity-Responsive Evaluations of Educational Technology.”

Currently, as a research/evaluation consultant, Dr. Ramirez is assessing the effectiveness of alternative strategies for increasing parent involvement in supporting their children’s learning as well as special needs services (i.e., identification, program placement, instruction and evaluation) for traditionally over/under served students (e.g., low income, of color, immigrants, and English Language Learners).
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Rachel C. Saldivar
Director, Advanced Technologies for Education and Evaluation

Ms. Saldivar has over 10 years experience as an elementary and middle school teacher and bilingual educator, working specifically with EL and migrant education student populations. Her classroom practices concentrated on the use of early literacy and second language acquisition strategies, and the use of technology to support instruction and student learning. Ms. Saldivar also has extensive experience working with beginning teachers as a district bilingual intern program course instructor and mentor teacher. Prior to joining Wexford, she was a Title VII school-wide grant specialist in charge of coordinating professional development and parent training for dual language immersion and bilingual education projects.

At Wexford, Ms. Saldivar has led evaluation and research teams related to the use of technology for teaching and learning. With a focus on new/advanced and research-based uses of technology for classroom and evaluation use, she has helped to conceptualize and implement Wexford’s use of technology to increase work effectiveness and support client needs. Ms. Saldivar has co-led the research and evaluation team for the MATRIX Star Schools project involving use of mobile technologies and web-based resources with middle school math students and their teachers. She also led the statewide evaluation of the California K-12 High Speed Network and the evaluation and research study of a multi-state project focused on the use of web-based student modules and games to improve algebraic thinking and learning in the middle grades. Currently, she is co-leading the evaluation of the ABCUSD Foreign Language Assistance Grant, and is also collaborating with the Wexford Texas office to provide evaluation support to several virtual learning initiatives, a college prep program and advanced placement program for minority students and a TSTEM academic program.

Ms. Saldivar holds a bachelor’s degree in public administration from the University of Southern California and a master’s degree and credential in educational administration from the University of LaVerne. She recently concluded a 2-year position as adjunct professor with CSU Pomona, working with Indigenous teachers from Southern Mexico participating in a study abroad program.
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Roger Salinas
Director, School and Community Leadership

Mr. Salinas leads Wexford initiatives in school and community leadership, including supporting the development of online courses for administrators and parents.  He has almost 40 years of educational experience at the elementary, intermediate and high school levels. 

Mr. Salinas has supported the development of the InvestigatingAutism professional development course. Additionally, he has supported the evaluation of the California High Speed Network, and was the lead evaluator of the Kentucky Gates Leadership Grant to support administrator use of hand-held technology devices to collect classroom observation information.  He has also been an evaluator on the MATRIX Star Schools Project, using mobile technology devices to support student learning in middle school math to help to improve school-wide achievement.

Mr. Salinas was an elementary school principal with over 21 years of administrative experience.  He has worked with rural and urban communities to address the learning needs of diverse student populations. He has chaired and worked on committees to comply with the needs of special education and English language learners, technology, and safe campuses. In addition, he has conducted training for administrators, faculties and parents on curriculum, educational and administrative issues and policies, discipline plans and counseling.

Mr. Salinas graduated from Eastern Illinois University and has a master’s degree in education from Whittier College. He has credentials in elementary education, educational administration, adult basic education, a specific credential in Spanish, and a bilingual certificate of competence.
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Selma Sax
Strategic Planning and Evaluation Associate

Mrs. Sax has more than 20 years experience in evaluation, strategic planning, policy initiatives and public service. She holds teaching credentials in Massachusetts and California and a Pupil Personnel Credential in California. Mrs. Sax was a school board member for eight years, serving as president of her board twice.

Mrs. Sax has worked with political and educational leaders to assist them in planning and implementing educational technology in K-12 public education to improve teaching and learning. Governor Wilson of California appointed her for two terms to the Education Council for Technology in Learning where she served for two years as the Chairperson of the Council. Mrs. Sax has also served as one of George W. Bush's advisors on policy initiatives in educational technology to improve teaching and learning.

Mrs. Sax has served as the lead evaluator for the HPR*TEC at the University of Kansas, and EETT projects in Nevada. Currently she is conducting studies on artificial intelligence tutors and assessor advisors designed by Quantum Simulations.  She was Co-Director of the Wexford PT3*L3 “Learning, Linking and Leading”, a 2001 Catalyst Grant funded through the Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology grant program at the United States Department of Education. Mrs. Sax and Ms. Cassidy of Wexford, Inc. twice chaired the Evaluation Institute for the U.S. Department of Education’s PT3 Grantees Meetings (2001/2002) to help train evaluators for PT3 grant programs.
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Angie Sims
Co-Director, Professional Development and Family Education Academy

Ms. Sims earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in elementary education from California State University at Los Angeles. Additionally, Ms. Sims has been part of the Wexford team that has developed the InvestigatingAutism program. Ms. Sims focuses on supporting the needs of teachers, parents and students by providing professional development, evaluation and technical assistance services to projects related to improving student outcomes, including:

• providing services and resources for children with autism, as part of the development team of InvestigatingAutism,
• supporting teachers participating in the MATRIX Star Schools Project Field Testing,
• creating and providing resources and coursework for parents and teachers, 
• implementing new programs to provide opportunities for professional development for teachers,
• analyzing field test data to identify promising practices for teachers and students, and
• creating data collection procedures.

Ms. Sims has a refreshingly clear understanding of the needs of the K-12 education community, as well as the ability to work seamlessly with teachers, parents and students. Prior to joining the Wexford team, she served as a pre-school and elementary school teacher, a curriculum specialist and consultant, a professional development specialist and as a distance-learning instructor of history-social studies for the TEAMS Distance Learning Program at the Los Angeles County Office of Education.

Ms. Sims has also served as an adjunct professor at the Claremont Graduate School, Teacher Education Program, and at California State University at Long Beach where she taught history-social science methods courses. Currently, Ms. Sims is working towards acquiring a behavioral analyst (BCBA) credential, having completed her coursework.
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Sarandon Cassidy Vincent
Director, Administrative Services

Mrs. Vincent assists the Executive Director in all administrative aspects of the non-profit organization including payroll processing, administering employee benefits, and keeping employee records. She is currently the secretary of the Wexford corporate board, as well as manager of contracts, invoices, accounts receivable, budgets and related financial records.

In addition to being a licensed realtor and income tax preparer, Mrs. Vincent holds two bachelor's degrees from California State University - Long Beach in creative writing and in dance. She is an award-winning dancer, choreographer and costume designer, with her own modern dance company, Indigo Dance Theatre.
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