Michele Rovins is the Director of the Special Education Policy and Practice (SEPP) team at WestEd. In this role, she is responsible for directing the development and expansion of services to support our clients in building educational systems that advance opportunities for each and every student to thrive and succeed. Working to build impactful inclusive systems and communities nationwide that produce improved outcomes for a vast number of students with disabilities. The SEPP team works to provide a deep and broad range of professional development, leadership, and research offerings for the field at the national, state, and local levels.
Rovins also serves as the 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 works 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 have been historically underserved.