U.S. Department of Education Assistant Secretary Thelma Meléndez de Santa Ana will address the 2011 Eastern Regional School Improvement Grant Capacity-Building Conference for School Improvement Grant (SIG) recipients on Wednesday, April 13, at the Renaissance Washington, D.C. DuPont Circle Hotel. The conference is the second of four regional, capacity-building conferences being held over the next two months to support state and local education agencies, as well as schools, in their efforts to successfully turnaround persistently low-performing schools. Practitioners, researchers and education leaders from across the country will come together to discuss challenges and share promising practices and examples.
The two-day conference, taking place April 13 and 14, is hosted by the U.S. Department of Education in partnership with its Appalachia, Florida and Islands, Mid Atlantic, New England, New York and Southwest Comprehensive Centers, and in part by WestEd, a nonprofit agency that partners with the New England and New York centers. During the conference, Dr. Meléndez de Santa Ana will underscore the importance of turning around low-performing schools, and how school turnarounds benefit students, families and the community. She will also discuss how the U.S. Department of Education is supporting states, districts and schools as they undertake this critical work. The first conference was held in Los Angeles on April 5-6. Future conferences will be held in Chicago and Denver in May.