WestEd Team

John Jacobs is a Senior Technical Assistance Specialist with WestEd’s culturally responsive systems team. In his role, John delivers professional learning, technical assistance, and develops research and evidence-based tools, guides, and comprehensive equity audits. This work supports state education agencies, district and school-based leaders and educators in creating culturally responsive; equitable systems, practices, dispositions, and environments. John is a skilled facilitator in the areas related to culture identity and an experienced collaborator who has worked to embed equity and cultural responsiveness throughout district and state level policies and programs (e.g. Coaching, MTSS, PBIS, SEL). Prior to joining WestEd, John served as a member of New York State Education Department’s (NSYED) Office of Special Education technical assistance partnership, spending time with New York University’s Metropolitan Center on Research and the Transformation of Schools and Bank Street College’s Center for Culture, Race, and Equity. John facilitated participatory root cause analysis processes to determine the forces driving and sustaining disproportionality and worked to craft systemic improvement plans to address disproportionality. Additionally, he worked in partnership with members of the NYSED office of special education and other partnership members to develop policies, professional learning materials, and other capacity building resources aimed at improving the ability of educators throughout the state to identify and address disproportionality. John received a B.A. in Secondary Education with a concentration in Social Studies (5-adult) from Marshall University and an M.A. in Educational Leadership, Politics, and Advocacy from New York University.