Michele Rovins

Overview

Michele Rovins has almost 30 years of experience in the field of education and over 20 years of experience managing a portfolio of U.S. Department of Education–funded national and regional technical assistance centers. She specializes in the areas of capacity building, collaboration, systems change, dissemination, technology systems development, implementation, and evaluation.

In her current role, she is responsible for directing the development and expansion of services to support clients in building equitable educational systems that advance opportunities for every student to succeed and for leading the team in building impactful, inclusive systems and communities nationwide that improve outcomes for students with disabilities.

Rovins also serves as Deputy Director of the National Center for Systemic Improvement (NCSI), funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs. This national technical assistance center has worked for the past 10 years with all 60 state education agencies (SEAs)—50 states and 10 other government entities—to transform their systems to improve outcomes for children and youth with disabilities. In this role, Rovins works to build the capacity of SEAs and local education agencies (LEAs) to develop, implement, and evaluate systems that drive improvement of services for students who historically have been underserved.

Before joining WestEd, Rovins was Director of the technical assistance support for the Race to the Top-District grantees funded by the U.S. Department of Education to AEM. Prior to that, she worked as Chief of Staff for the Assistant Secretary of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) at the U.S. Department of Education and served as Director of the Technical Assistance Coordination Center for the Academy for Educational Development (AED)/FHI 360. The common link between all of these roles is her work to build capacity for state and district leadership to build systems that improve outcomes for all students but especially students with disabilities.

Education

• MA in deaf education, Gallaudet University
• BA in political science and public service, University of California, Santa Barbara

Select Publications

Valdez, A., Bell, A., Derby, K., Dolle, J., Fitzpatrick, R., Rovins, M., Walrond, N., & Willis, J. (2024). Systems change at WestEd: Six guiding principles. WestEd.

Rovins, M. (2001). LOGSE and IDEA: A comparison of the Spanish and American legislation for children with disabilities. The George Washington University Bilingual Education Newsletter.

Rovins, M., & Jensema, C. (1997). Instant reading incentive: TV captions. Perspectives in Education and Deafness, (16)1, 6–8.

Rovins, M., & Lytle, R. (1997). Reforming deaf education. A paradigm shift from how to teach to what to teach. American Annals of the Deaf, 142, 7–15.

Rovins, M., Sass-Lehrer, M., & Gerner de Garcia, B. (1995). Creating a multicultural school climate for deaf children and their families [Special issue/guide]. Perspectives in Education and Deafness.

Honors, Awards, and Affiliations

Recipient of the Paul D. Hood Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Field (with the National Center for Systemic Improvement staff) (2020)
IMPACT Award for Collaboration-Youth Power Proposal Team, FHI 360 (2012)
Legacy Award, AED (2011)
Team Management Award, AED (2011)
Leadership Award, AED (2008)