Heather Lavigne

About

Heather Lavigne is deputy director of REL Northeast & Islands and a senior research scientist at EDC. She is responsible for supporting close collaboration across training, coaching, and technical support; research; and dissemination projects to ensure each partnership’s scope of work is coherent, impactful, achievable, and focused on improving student outcomes and advancing equity in education.

Lavigne joined REL Northeast & Islands in 2014 and has served as the applied research task lead. In addition to her strong leadership skills, she is a child development and research methodology expert and leads studies that explore how to enhance formal and informal PreK–12 learning. She brings expertise in quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research using descriptive, experimental, and quasi-experimental methods. Drawing from this experience, she contributes to REL Northeast & Islands studies. She is also a certified reviewer for the What Works Clearinghouse.

Lavigne holds a PhD and MS in Developmental Psychology with a concentration in Quantitative Methodology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Email: Hlavigne@edc.org

Associated IES Content

Blog

REL Northeast & Islands' Governing Board Reflects on How to Turn Innovation into Evidence-based Practice

This blog introduces our Governing Board and explores the topic of innovation in education, the theme from our recent Governing Board meeting.
Date published:
Aug 31, 2023
report Descriptive Study

Exploring Implementation of Attendance Supports to Reduce Chronic Absenteeism in the Providence Public School District

In recent years Rhode Island's Providence Public School District (PPSD) has put initiatives in place to reduce high chronic absenteeism. This study explored attendance supports aimed at reducing chronic absenteeism that PPSD schools implemented in the 2018/19 school year. Although some schools had attendance supports in place before 2018/19, in 2018 the district added new requirements for schools to address chronic absenteeism. The study investigated what attendance supports were most commonl...
Sep 01, 2021
Publication number:
REL 2021 099
report Descriptive Study

Trends and Gaps in Reading Achievement across Kindergarten and Grade 1 in Two Illinois School Districts

To assess education progress in the early grades and identify achievement gaps, this study examined reading achievement data for kindergarten and grade 1 students in two districts in Illinois: District U-46 (Elgin Area Schools) and District 186 (Springfield Public Schools). Drawing on a different reading assessment in each district, the study team documented reading achievement in these two early grades for two kindergarten cohorts (2016/17 for District U-46 and 2017/18 for District 186) and ...
Feb 01, 2021
Publication number:
REL 2021 058
report Descriptive Study

Exploring District-Level Expenditure-to-Performance Ratios

State education budgets have shrunk since the economic recession of 2007-09. During the 2012-13 school year 35 states provided less funding for education than they had five years earlier (Leachman, Albares, Masterson, & Wallace, 2016; Levin et al., 2012; Oliff, Mai, & Leachman, 2012). As a result, districts across the country are seeking ways to increase their efficiency by using fewer resources while maintaining or even improving education outcomes. This study examines the expenditure-to-per...
Mar 01, 2017
report Descriptive Study

A Guide to Calculating District Expenditure-to-Performance Ratios Using Publicly Available Data

Districts across the nation are seeking ways to increase efficiency by maintaining, if not improving, educational outcomes using fewer resources. One measure that is sometimes used as a proxy for school district efficiency is an expenditure-to-performance ratio, for example a ratio of per pupil expenditures to student academic performance. This guide shows states and districts how to use publicly available data about district-level expenditures and student academic performance to create six e...
Feb 01, 2017
report Descriptive Study

Principals' time, tasks, and professional development: An analysis of Schools and Staffing Survey data

This study describes how principals reported spending their time and what professional development they reported participating in, based on data collected through the Schools and Staffing Survey by the National Center for Education Statistics during the 2011/12 school year. The study analyzes schools by grade level, poverty level, and within poverty level by whether schools made adequate yearly progress on student performance the previous year. Overall, principals reported spending an average...
Oct 01, 2016
report Descriptive Study

An analysis of student engagement patterns and online course outcomes in Wisconsin

Student enrollment in online courses has increased in the past 15 years and continues to grow. However, little is known about students' education experiences or online course outcomes. These are areas of particular interest to the Midwest Virtual Education Research Alliance, whose goal is to understand how to support student success in online courses. Members of the alliance partnered with Regional Educational Laboratory Midwest to develop and conduct this study on how students engage in onli...
Jul 01, 2016