Tessie Rose Bailey, Ph.D., is the Director of the PROGRESS Center: Promoting Progress for Students with Disabilities and advisor for the Center on Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS Center) at AIR, Lead IDEA Center, and National Center on Intensive Interventions (NCII). She also supports states and districts in implementing special education requirements and tiered systems through the National Center for Systemic Improvement (NCSI) and state contracts. She has conducted hundreds of workshops and presentations for local and state educators on effective and efficient implementation of special education, special education law, and the use of tiered systems to support for improved outcomes for students with disabilities. She has developed many widely used technical assistance resources, including “Aligning Intensive Intervention and Special Education with Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS)” in the Essentials of Intensive Intervention; Strategies for Setting High-Quality Academic Individualized Education Program Goals; assessment and intervention professional learning material; online, self-paced learning modules; and training materials for professional learning providers. 

Sara Evans serves as the Targeted Technical Assistance provider for Lead IDEA and a technical assistance provider for the PROGRESS Center. In these roles, she provides district, state and national level coaching and professional development in the areas of special education services and policy, transition services, future planning, MTSS and systems coaching. Prior to joining AIR, Sara worked in the field of special education for over 23 years as a K-12 special education teacher, Program Specialist and Director of Student Services. In addition, she has led the implementation of district, regional and statewide MTSS implementations. Sara earned her bachelor’s degree in Elementary (K-8) and Special Education (PreK-12) from Northern Arizona University and her master’s in Educational Leadership from Montana State University.