Joseph Sassone joined WestEd's Local Accountability Professional Series (LAPDS) to help build effective school intervention systems and extend the agency's services in accountability.

As LAPDS Project Director, Sassone helps school districts meet the accountability requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Sassone has helped districts throughout the United States blend research-based instructional support with data-management technology to create a customized local assessment and accountability system. District educators, through LAPDS, learn how to accurately guide and track learning — demonstrably using student data to improve their schools.

Sassone's work has been a key component in helping schools and districts raise student achievement results on state assessments. He currently provides consultation to several districts in Arizona, California, New Hampshire, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont. With the help of Sassone, LAPDS was implemented in 2007 at Noralto Elementary School in North Sacramento (CA) School District. The fifth-grade teachers fully implemented the reteach and enrichment classes with common formative assessments from January 2007 to June 2008. Subsequently, the school's student achievement results jumped significantly past the state average in English language arts. In addition, proficient and advanced students in English language arts increased from 26% to 52% for all fifth graders on the Californian Standards Test.

Prior to joining WestEd in 2006, Sassone served as Assistant Superintendent of Vail (Arizona) Unified School District, an LAPDS client. The collaboration between Sassone and WestEd resulted in Vail fully implementing the district accountability system and moving student performance, districtwide, from the lowest in the Tucson Valley to the highest. Vail was given special recognition by the Arizona Department of Education for exemplary growth in student performance in just four years. In over three years, this initiative moved a rapidly growing school district (8,200 students) from mediocrity to one of the highest performing school districts in Arizona.

Prior to becoming Assistant Superintendent, Sassone served as the district's Director of Human Resources, recruiting more than 100 teachers per year for a rapidly growing school district. He also implemented a robust new teacher induction program with cognitive coaching in early literacy, math, and essential elements of instruction. Throughout his career at Vail, Sassone was an instructor for preservice undergraduate teacher candidates in his specialty of classroom instruction. He also taught a graduate-level course in leadership for prospective building principals.

Previously, Sassone served as an Assistant Principal in the King Park (New York) Central School District, where he implemented a districtwide new teacher induction and cognitive coaching program. He also was Assistant Principal of an early learning center, high school, and middle school, and administrator in charge of the English as a second language program districtwide.

In addition, Sassone served as school counselor in the Northport-East Northport (New York) Union Free School District, where he implemented programs for students at risk of failure and the first new teacher and cognitive coaching program. He also was special education teacher and counselor for the Culpeper (Virginia) School District, and served as an Adjunct Professor at both Northern Arizona University and the University of Arizona South.

He is a member of the Para Los Niños Elementary Charter School Advisory Board, Los Angeles. He presents regularly at various conferences nationwide and has served as keynote speaker on several occasions.

In 2005, Sassone received the Golden Bell Award by the Arizona School Board Association for District Academic Achievement and the Spot Light Success Award for Using Data to Drive Instruction by the Arizona Department of Education.

Sassone received a BA in human relations from St. Joseph's College and an MS in school counseling, and a Professional Degree in administration and leadership from Long Island University.