Laura Shankland
Laura Shankland is a senior technical assistance consultant at AIR. She has more than ten years of project management and education experience, overseeing the development of a range of resources for Grades K–12 educators. Shankland provides technical assistance, professional development, and communication support for AIR’s work with the Illinois 21st CCLC afterschool programs, overseeing the development of a quarterly newsletter and a resource bulletin that are distributed to grantees. She also assists with the planning and implementation of technical assistance workshops and the annual conference.
Shankland’s previous technical assistance work includes her involvement in the National Partnership for Quality Afterschool, a study that aimed to identify and share best practices among 21st CCLC afterschool programs. Shankland conducted site visits to afterschool programs and used findings on promising practices to inform resources for afterschool practitioners. She created and distributed AfterWords, an e-bulletin that won the Association of Educational Publishers Distinguished Achievement Award. She also led the development of a series of instructional and professional development guides that supplement the online Afterschool Training Toolkit.
Previously, Shankland worked at Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, where she was an editor and project lead in the development of educational resources. Her education experience includes teaching fifth grade in a bilingual classroom in Phoenix, Arizona, as a Teach for America corps member, and overseeing a summer English as a second language program at the Boys & Girls Clubs in Scottsdale, Arizona. She currently serves on the board of directors of Austin Discovery School, a charter school in Central Texas.