Kevin Perks is the Director of School and District Services for WestEd’s Quality Schools and Districts (QSD) team.
As the Director of QSD, Perks leads a team that provides coaching, training, and technical assistance support to schools, districts, and state departments of education around school turnaround and improvement; literacy; standards-based curriculum; instruction; assessment; motivation and engagement; family engagement; professional learning communities (PLCs); and teacher effectiveness. Perks also works on the Region 2 Comprehensive Center (R2CC), which provides technical assistance to state agencies in Connecticut, New York, and Rhode Island.
Perks is the author of Motivation to Learn: Transforming Classroom Culture to Support Student Achievement. He is also the editor of Transformational Leadership for Rapid School Improvement from Teachers College Press. Kevin has also written many articles for a range of magazines and journals and is the series editor for LEAF, Inc’s subscription service for educational leaders provided by the New York State Council of State Superintendents.
Prior to joining WestEd, Perks served as a Curriculum Coordinator for a large school district in Maine. He helped the district redesign its system of curriculum, instruction, and assessment to better use research and data to prepare students to be college- and career-ready. Perks also taught multiple subject areas at the elementary, middle, high school, and postsecondary levels. He began his career at Marburn Academy, a school dedicated to serving students with special needs, particularly dyslexia.
Perks holds a PhD in curriculum and instruction from the University of New Hampshire and an MA in the art of teaching from the University of Chicago.