Natalie Lacireno-Paquet

(781) 481-1133

About

Natalie Lacireno-Paquet leads applied research (Task 5) for REL Northwest. Dr. Lacireno-Paquet supports partnership teams to conduct high-leverage, rigorous research to inform important decisions at the local and state levels.

She also conducts studies of education policies and practices and currently leads a multi-state randomized controlled trial of a reading comprehension program.

Lacireno-Paquet received an MA in public policy and women’s studies and a PhD in public policy from George Washington University.

Associated IES Content

Blog

Transforming Teaching with Technology: An Evidence-Based Toolkit for Higher Education

Transforming Teaching with Technology: An Evidence-Based Toolkit for Higher Education
Date published:
Nov 17, 2025

About REL Northwest

Regional Educational Lab (REL) Northwest partners with key stakeholders in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington to develop evidence that can inform consequential decisions about policy, programs, and practice. Key stakeholders include organizations with decision-making authority and the ability to influence education policy and practice, such as state and local education agencies, school boards, institutes of higher education, and student, family, and community organizations.
report Descriptive Study

Teacher Preparation and Employment Outcomes of Beginning Teachers in Rhode Island

Because teacher turnover can adversely affect student achievement and local education budgets, many states want to better understand the extent to which teachers switch schools or leave the state public school system. Leaders at the Rhode Island Department of Education are interested specifically in understanding factors related to teacher mobility, retention, and attrition. This study examined these outcomes among beginning teachers in Rhode Island who were trained in a teacher preparation p...
Aug 01, 2020
Publication number:
REL 2020-029
Blog

Using Data to Keep School Improvement On-Track: Focus on Comprehensive Support and Improvement

Research on chronically low-performing schools suggests that monitoring the implementation and progress of those schools' improvement efforts can help them use limited resources more effectively. REL Mid-Atlantic is partnering with the Office of Leadership Development and School Improvement (OLDSI) at the Maryland State Department of Education to co-develop a tool to track OLDSI's services to and engagement with schools that need Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI) and their districts...
Date published:
Jan 07, 2020
Blog

Successful Strategies for Improving Low-Performing Schools: A Look at Turnaround Leadership

Too many students are not adequately prepared for college, careers, and a productive future, which can lead to a lifetime of economic insecurity. To promote better outcomes for students, the Every Student Succeeds Act requires states to identify struggling schools and then develop and implement evidence-based approaches to improve them. Around the country and in the mid-Atlantic region, states are using a number of metrics to identify their lowest-performing schools, and state education ...
Date published:
Mar 12, 2019
report Impact Study

A Descriptive Analysis of Expanded Pathways to Graduation in New York State

The Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast and Islands (REL-NEI) partnered with the New York State Education Department (NYSED) to examine the pathways used by students to attain a Regents diploma at the outset of a new policy expanding those pathways in June 2015. Under the new 4+1 pathways policy, students could replace one of the two required social studies Regents exams with another approved assessment in one of several subjects to earn a NYSED-recognized Regents diploma. The analysis,...
Jan 01, 2019
Blog

At school, on time, and every day: What research tells us about reducing chronic absenteeism

Chronic absenteeism, usually defined as missing 10 percent or more of the days in a school year, is a widespread challenge that can lead to long-term problems. Data from the Office of Civil Rights suggest that 51 percent of Pennsylvania schools have 10 percent or more of their students chronically absent. Students who are chronically absent miss out on learning and are more prone to dropping out than their peers who attend school regularly. The School Support and Improvement Research ...
Date published:
Apr 09, 2018
resource Training Material

What Research Tells Us About Reducing Chronic Absenteeism: A Webinar for the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE)

This virtual workshop, What Research Tells Us About Reducing Chronic Absenteeism: A Webinar for the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE), enables participants to better understand chronic absenteeism, its prevalence and use as an accountability measure in Pennsylvania, and promising strategies for preventing and reducing it. Presenters introduce chronic absenteeism and discuss its root causes and prevalence nationally and in Pennsylvania. They then provide an overview of how PDE plans t...
Feb 22, 2018
report Descriptive Study

Relationship between school professional climate and teachers' satisfaction with the evaluation process

Recent changes in the policy environment have led states and districts in the Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Northeast & Islands Region to increase the rigor of their teacher evaluation systems by including more frequent observations or student test score data. States and districts nationwide began reforming their evaluation systems as early as 2006 and were further spurred to action by federal programs such as the Teacher Incentive Fund and the 2009 Race to the Top grant program. This...
May 01, 2016
report Descriptive Study

Teacher evaluation and professional learning: Lessons from early implementation in a large urban district

REL Northeast and Islands, in collaboration with the Northeast Educator Effectiveness Research Alliance, examined the alignment of teacher evaluation and professional learning in a large urban district in the Northeast. REL researchers examined the types of professional learning activities teachers reported they participated in, the alignment of the reported activities with what evaluators prescribed, and whether evaluation ratings improved from one academic year to the next. The study found ...
Mar 01, 2016
report Descriptive Study

Redesigning Teacher Evaluation: Lessons from a Pilot Implementation

REL Northeast and Islands, in collaboration with the Northeast Educator Effectiveness Research Alliance and the New Hampshire Department of Education, conducted a study of the implementation of new teacher evaluation systems in New Hampshire's School Improvement Grant (SIG) schools. While the basic system features are similar across district plans, the specifics of these features vary considerably by district. District fidelity to the plans, as measured by the exposure of teachers to differen...
Jan 01, 2015
resource Training Material

Developing a Coherent Research Agenda: Lessons from the REL Northeast & Islands Research Agenda Workshops

This report describes the approach that REL Northeast and Islands used to guide its eight research alliances toward collaboratively identifying a shared research agenda. A key feature of their approach was a two-workshop series, during which alliance members created a set of research questions on a shared topic of education policy and/or practice. This report explains how REL-NEI conceptualized and organized the workshops, planned the logistics, overcame geographic distance among alliance mem...
Jul 01, 2014
report Descriptive Study

How States Use Student Learning Objectives in Teacher Evaluation Systems: A Review of State Websites

Motivated by the need to improve teaching and learning and by federal priorities reflected in requirements for grant programs such as Race to the Top and the Teacher Incentive Fund, many states are developing teacher evaluation systems that include measures of individual teachers' contributions to their students' learning growth. One way to measure teacher impact is with student learning objectives (SLOs)--an alternative to the more generally used value-added modeling with standardized test s...
Mar 01, 2014
report Descriptive Study

The Characteristics and Experiences of Beginning Teachers in Seven Northeast and Islands Region States and Nationally

This study describes the characteristics and experiences of beginning public school teachers in the Northeast and Islands Region states and compares them with the characteristics and experiences of beginning teachers nationally using data from the 2007/08 Schools and Staffing Survey. This study uses data from the 2007/08 Schools and Staffing Survey to describe the characteristics and experiences of beginning teachers in the Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast and Islands Region states (...
Mar 01, 2012