Helping Schools Create Stronger, More Inclusive Teaching and Learning
Our Approach
We implement curriculum and instruction evaluation, design, revision, and implementation projects within the larger context of social-emotional learning and trauma-engaged practice, responsive to learners’ and families’ lived experience. CES consultants listen to school and educator needs, learn about current initiatives, and tailor services to respond.
Experience
CES has supported district and school-based curriculum and instructional leaders to assess current practice and curricula, identify strengths, and recommend improvements. We also assist educators to identify new curricular resources to use in their efforts to improve and enhance their programs. ve program to support the onboarding and success of new educators
We have helped districts with:
- The systematic review, evaluation, and revision of Pre-K12 curriculum to ensure strict alignment with Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks and district goals
- Working with educators and leadership to ensure that PK-12 curriculum is rigorous, culturally responsive, and vertically aligned
- Collaborating with Principals and Instructional leadership to ensure high-quality, evidence-based practices are implemented in classrooms
- Gathering and analyzing achievement data, sharing results with stakeholders, and utilizing findings to recommend targeted improvements to academic programs
- Developing and implementing a comprehensive program to support the onboarding and success of new educators
CES Focus Areas
Special Education
With extensive knowledge of best practices and current research in special education, we can assist districts with professional development, inclusive teaching practices and curricula, coaching and technical assistance for developing solutions to effectively implement and sustain programs that comply with regulations and meet diverse learning needs.
English Learner Education
As schools experience dynamic shifts in their populations of multilingual learners they see learners from rich prior literacy and schooling experiences along with learners that lack the same type of prior schooling or have had significant interruptions to their education or significant trauma. CES assessment, design and coaching can help you to address the need to engage these students where they are.
Technology and Digital Literacy
We offer deep expertise in Digital Learning and Literacy, Google Apps for Education, International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) standards, the application of innovative technologies in the classroom such as AI, and the principles of sound instructional design for digital learning.
Impact of Poverty
Young people living in long-term poverty demonstrate challenges and difficulties related to thinking skills, language and literacy development, social-emotional development, and behavioral wellness. CES led statewide training-of-trainers in the MA DESE’s Leading Educational Access Project (LEAP) to improve outcomes for students in poverty, and facilitated similar training for districts across the U.S.
Culturally Responsive Curriculum
The ways in which members of a school community experience academics, policies, and the curriculum has a lot to do with identity. The CES Joy and Justice team assists schools and educators to assess their curricula and instructional practice and explore what can be learned about becoming culturally responsive practitioners. We provide technical assistance for implementing clear curricula and pedagogical practices that affirm identity and belonging in schools.
Reading/Literacy
CES has helped school districts to evaluate and develop high quality plans for reading curriculum, offering multidiscplinary teams and trained research and evaluation specialists for these projects. CES also specializes in teaching practices and curriculum support for struggling learners, including those for whom English is a second language.
Emerging America - History and Civics
The Emerging America program founded in 2006 at CES offers professional development, curriculum support, and online resources through EmergingAmerica.org, for K-12 teachers of civics, history (including disability history) and social studies. Featuring inquiry-based use of primary sources in the classroom, and Library of Congress resources that connect classrooms to national archives and networks.
Native Education Practices
CES works with educators in their growth to disrupt educational practices that inaccurately depict Native knowledge, histories, and continued resilience of the original stewards of this continent. We have provided professional development, coaching, assessment, and technical assistance for district, school, tribal education councils, and organizations, and can draw together the right multidisciplinary team for your program.
Curriculum Consulting Team
Albert Johnson-Mussad Ph.D.
Dr. Johnson-Mussad serves as a staff consultant in leadership and instruction at the Collaborative for Educational Services. He travels nationally to facilitate professional development for school leaders, teachers and other licensed educators in instructional leadership; English learner education; world language and bilingual education; adolescent literacy education; improving outcomes for students in poverty; and social-emotional learning. In addition to professional development, he provides individualized leadership and instructional coaching, curriculum development and strategic planning, and educational program evaluation.
Johnson-Mussad is a seasoned K-12 teacher and curriculum leader who has worked with central office and school-based administrators to increase achievement for both striving learners [or less ready learners] and gifted and talented [more ready] learners. He has taught K-12 English learners and high school Spanish. Albert served as an assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, and also in the role of elementary school principal. He has been helping K-12 writers who are English learners, including EL’s with disabilities, to communicate personally compelling meaning for 30 years. He is the middle son of immigrants from Egypt, and a heritage speaker of English who also speaks Spanish and some Arabic.
Learn more about:
Dr. Johnson-Mussad is currently serving a 3-year term on Massachusetts DESE's Gifted and Talented Advisory Council.
His publications include:
- Responsive Collaboration for IEP and 504 Teams, book. Co-authored 2022, Corwin.
- Instructional Techniques including Artists in Residence, Pair Shuffle, Who goes there? in New ways in Teaching English at the Secondary Level, Deborah Short. 1999, VA: TESOL
Among his recent conference presentations are Teaching Writers Learning English or Who Have IEPs, presented at the 2023 LitCon, the largest K-8 literacy education conference in North America; Improving Outcomes for Students in Poverty, at the 2024 Pennsylvania Migrant Education Program Conference; and Listening and Reading for Nonfiction Learning: Explicit Comprehension Instruction, for Massachusetts Teachers of Speakers of Other Languages. Albert has also presented at Future FocusED, a New England conference on the future of school.
You can also hear Albert in three podcasts, In Search of Meaning (This PhD Thinks, 2022), Reflections on Effective IEPs (Phenomenal Spotlight w/Mr. Short: Albert Johnson-Mussad, 2023), and Journeys Into Being (Episode 3 with host, Renata Pienkawa, 2023).
"Albert creates a great community within his instruction where all levels of educators are welcomed and appreciated. As a result, every member of the course is engaged and contributes knowledge based on their experiences. This means that the participants come away with enormous "hands-on" strategies with ways to use them in different settings because of the discussions we have." –5th Grade ELA/SS Teacher
Position: Leadership and Instruction Continuous Improvement Specialist
Email: ajohnsonmussad@collaborative.org
Phone: (413) 200-8294
Safire DeJong Ed.D.
Safire is a mama, auntie, daughter, practitioner, and scholar. She is co-editor of Readings for Diversity and Social Justice and holds a Doctorate of Education in Social Justice Education from UMass Amherst. Her research focuses on young people’s experiences with status and power in schools and communities. At CES, Safire works with a team of talented and experienced co-facilitators (the Joy & Justice team!) to provide equity-focused consulting and professional development for PK-12 schools. She has 20 years of experience facilitating social justice work, intergroup dialogues, and training skilled facilitators. These experiences have enabled her to develop a broad set of tools and skills that can support groups to find the most generative possibilities for liberatory futures, together.
Position: Joy & Justice in Schools Program, Co-Director
Email: sdejong@collaborative.org
Phone: 413.345.8345
Casey Daigle
Casey Daigle is a digital learning leader, facilitator, and curriculum designer with 14 years of experience co-creating with educators and edtech. As Digital Learning Manager at the Collaborative for Educational Services, Casey partners with schools to demystify technology and connect the dots between the tools they have and the vision they hold—making room for curiosity, creativity, and meaningful change.
From Google tools to emerging AI, Casey designs hands-on, flexible PD that meets learners where they are—always with a spirit of experimentation and deep respect for their practice. She works with educators across Massachusetts and beyond, guiding work that’s human-centered, imaginative, and grounded in strong instructional design.
Casey is an ISTE Certified Educator and Google Certified Trainer.
Learn more about:
Among Casey's recent presentations and professional development have been
- Co-presenting with Bethany Emery at the MassCUE Spring Leadership Conference in 2023, on Worcester Public Schools Teacher Leaders Moving the Needle on Innovation and Integration (video available)
- Co-presenting with Jen Thomas the MassCUE Digital Citizenship Summer Webinar Series, 2023
- Co-presented with Suzanne Judson-Whitehouse and Carrie Rogers-Whitehead on Leveling Up DigCit Skills with AI, an edWeb.net webinar in January of 2023; available on the edWeb.net website
- Presenting Grading for Equity Book Study course
- Co-presenting with Shawn Fortin, Belchertown Public Schools, Dazzling Digital Doom Delayers, at MassCUE Fall Conference 2023
- Co-presenting with Rebecca Mazur, Ph.D.; André Morgan, Ph.D., EdLD; Todd Gazda, Ed.D., JD; Is Virtual Reality Right for Our District? at the 2023 MASC/MASS Jt. Conference
Position: Digital Learning Manager
Email: cdaigle@collaborative.org
Phone: (413) 588-7050