Mara Schanfield
Mara Schanfield is a technical assistance consultant at AIR with a focus on district and school improvement. She focuses on serving state, district, and school leaders in the design and delivery of support for turnaround and continuous improvement. This includes gathering qualitative data for needs assessments and facilitating collaborative data analysis to secure consensus for improvement priorities through the co-interpretation process.
For the state of Illinois and the Illinois Center for School Improvement, Schanfield coordinated and implemented statewide systems of support for districts receiving priority services in West Cook County, IL. She is a member of the On-Time Graduation Project Implementation team, supporting 34 districts across Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio to implement Early Warning Systems to reduce high school dropout.
Prior to AIR, Schanfield worked at the Center for Social Organization of Schools from John’s Hopkins where she implemented the Diplomas Now three-tiered school turnaround model at Boston English High School. She has served as an administrator and turnaround specialist in two Boston Public High Schools, as well serving on their Student Support and Student Safety Teams. She brings experience with restorative approaches to school discipline, PBIS, and RTI at the school-level. She is a school counselor by training and is a certified CLASS Observer for K-12. Schanfield has served as an annual facilitator at the School Turnaround Leaders Institute at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.