Senior Research & Program Associate
Senior Research and Program Associate Marla E. Perez-Selles works closely with schools, helping to provide research-based instructional support for English learners. Her work has resulted in improved academic performance of English learners and students from low-income families.
A member of
Learning Innovations at WestEd, Perez-Selles works with schools, districts, and state departments of education in the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. She provides technical assistance on issues and programs to meet the academic needs of English learners, and develops leadership capacity in schools, standards-based teaching and assessments, and effective collaborative data-driven teams. Through training and implementation of WestEd's
Local Accountability Professional Development Series, Perez-Selles helps school teams develop the capacity to analyze data to inform interventions for students at risk of academic failure, and implement and monitor effective teaching strategies and programs.
She serves as Project Director for Understanding the Academic Performance of Hispanic Students in the Virgin Islands, a research project as part of the Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast and Islands. This study will provide the Virgin Islands Department of Education, and other policy- and decision-makers, with a research-based understanding of the academic profile of the Islands' growing Hispanic student population, many of whom are English learners. The results will be disseminated not only to policy- and decision-makers, but also to teacher educators and others in programmatic positions, including district superintendent and curriculum staff, seeking to address further supports for these students.
Throughout her career, Perez-Selles has worked with teams of principals, superintendents, and district administrators on school reform and improvement; has taught graduate courses on bilingual education and English as a second language; and has authored a number of articles on bilingual education, collaboration, and teamwork to promote student-centered classrooms.
Perez-Selles is the former principal and architect of Amigos School, a nationally recognized urban dual immersion school serving a linguistically diverse community that, under her leadership, evolved from a program into a K–8 school. Her expertise in school leadership resulted in Amigos School achieving Adequate Yearly Progress in both mathematics and English language arts in all student subgroups.
She is a former president and current Board member of the Massachusetts Association for Bilingual Education. She won a Publications Award for
Kindle the Spark: An Action Guide for Schools Committed to the Success of Every Child and a "Spirit the Corps" award for her leadership in collaboration within The NETWORK, Inc.
Perez-Selles received a BA and an MA in English from the University of Puerto Rico, and a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies in educational administration and policy from the University of Massachusetts.
Tel: 781.481.1126
Email: mperezs@wested.org
Mailing Address:Learning Innovations at WestEd
200 Unicorn Park Drive, 4th floor
Woburn, Massachusetts 01801-3324
Project Work:
Pawtucket Comprehensive School Reform Project
