As the Educare Learning Network’s National Evaluation Partner, FPG serves as the consortium’s research and evaluation data center. FPG researchers, programmers and statisticians provide day-to-day technical assistance for local evaluation partners (LEPs) working with each Educare school to collect and use data. Additionally, FPG, representatives from Educare partners Start Early and the Buffett Early Childhood Fund, and LEPs meet annually to talk data (and more) – during “Data Camp.”

Throughout the year, FPG shares information about its people, projects, and publications on its website. As 2022 comes to a close, we’re taking a look back at some of the news stories we’ve highlighted over the last 12 months.

Thanks to her background as a special education teacher, Implementation Specialist Sophia Farmer brings real-world experience to her role as K-12 education project portfolio lead at UNC’s Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute. Learn more about her work as an implementation specialist at FPG.

Heather Aiken, PhD, NBCT, serves as the intervention director for Targeted Reading Instruction (TRI; formerly called Targeted Reading Intervention) at FPG. Before beginning this role, she worked for three years as a TRI literacy coach while earning her doctorate in teacher education and curriculum at UNC-Chapel Hill.

It’s been two years since Faculty Fellow Iheoma Iruka, PhD, launched FPG’s Equity Research Action Coalition. Since then, the group has taken big steps in its work to promote and support the healthy development of Black children across the African diaspora and other children of color.

The University of North Carolina System has announced the 2023 Faculty Fellows, who will spend one year researching teaching methods and best practices. The fellows are Jennifer Dalton from Appalachian State University, Jeff Lawson from Western Carolina University, and Nigel Pierce from North Carolina Central University. Pierce is also a Faculty Fellow at FPG.

Robert Carr’s path to his current role as a research scientist at FPG began in a Head Start preschool classroom in San Diego, CA, where he saw the benefits the program provided to children and families. Yet, every year, he watched as children graduated from the program and he wondered whether those benefits would continue to last. That question has been a guiding force for Carr.

In support of the Institute’s strategic plan, researchers and members of the Research and Evaluation division at the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute have been working to embed racial equity in everything they do.

Thanks to a new five-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), a group of researchers at FPG is expanding its work to support implementation of instructional and leadership practices that lead to improved outcomes for students with disabilities.