Chicago: Personnel
Amy Dahlstrom Klainer, Project Director
Amy Dahlstrom Klainer, Ph.D., NCSP, is the Project Director for the Illinois-ASPIRE Chicago region. She previously worked as a school psychologist for Chicago Public Schools where she assisted with professional development related to school-based problem-solving and Response to Intervention. Prior to joining CPS, Amy worked as a school psychologist for Minneapolis Public Schools, a district that utilized a problem-solving model. Amy’s training and consultation experience include implementing school-based problem solving, functional behavior assessment, linking assessment to intervention, progress monitoring and data-based decision making, and positive behavior supports. Amy also works as an affiliate professor for the Chicago School of Professional Psychology School Psychology Department.
David Mayrowetz, Project Consultant
David Mayrowetz, Ed.D. (Rutgers, 2002) is an assistant professor of Policy Studies in UIC’s College of Education and is serving as a consultant for the Illinois-ASPIRE Chicago region. David researches the way in which internal and external forces within the educational system, and in schools in particular, shape the formation and implementation of reforms. Mayrowetz has a keen interest in how general education reforms impact students with disabilities and special education programs and teachers and how special education reforms, like the Corey H. decision, impact general education programs and students. As leadership is a necessity for implementing reform, Mayrowetz has also studied the development of organizational (or distributed) leadership at both the elementary and secondary levels. His research has appeared in Educational Administration Quarterly, Leadership and Policy in Schools, Educational Policy, Teachers College Record, and Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.
David serves on the I-ASPIRE Chicago Advisory Panel. With his UIC colleague, Steven Tozer, he will be working with principals, facilitators, teachers and parents to develop professional learning communities around ASPIRE in participating schools.
Cynthia Baranowski, Project Consultant
Cynthia Baranowski serves as a SAC trainer for the ASPIRE Chicago region. She is retired from the public school system, having served as a building principal, dean of instruction, and teacher of English, journalism, and Latin; all of her teaching and administrative experience has been at the high school level. Cynthia received a bachelor’s degree from Loyola University - Chicago, a master’s degree in English from DePaul University, a master’s degree in Library and Informational Sciences from Dominican University, and a Certificate of Advanced Study in Educational Administration from Northern Illinois University. In addition to serving as the SAC trainer for the ASPIRE Chicago region, Cynthia is a part-time consultant with West 40, ISC 2. Her responsibilities include planning and presenting Administrators’ Academies, providing training and coaching for the Standards Aligned Classroom initiative, and providing training on specific instructional approaches. As a SAC coach, Cynthia has provided services in western Cook, DuPage, and Kendall counties; her team grade levels included K-8. She has worked with the SAC program since its inception six years ago.
Cynthia’s role with ASPIRE, Chicago region, is to provide training for the Standards Aligned Classroom program on an at-need basis.
Carole Cash, Regional Coordinator
Christine (Tia) Chowanski-Doty, Regional Coordinator
Janice Hooker, Ed.D., Regional Coordinator
Ethel J. Wells, Regional Coordinator