Mr. T.J. Horwood, Co-Director of the Region 8 Comprehensive Center, is a Director of Child Welfare and Education at ICF. He has 20 years of experience in education as a program consultant working with education and community agencies at the federal, state, regional, and local levels to develop, implement, evaluate, and improve programs. Mr. Horwood began his career in Ohio at Kent State University where he worked with school districts and community organizations to evaluate and improve programs for students and educators. Since joining ICF in 2005, he has managed large-scale projects to deliver TA, tools, and training, as well as evaluation services, to ED, SEAs, REAs, LEAs, and IHEs across the U.S. Since 2015, he has provided monitoring assistance to the Ohio Department of Education in its evaluation of community (charter) school sponsors’ compliance with relevant laws and rules. Previously, he contributed to the evaluation of the Ohio Mathematics Academy Program and the Ohio Science Institute initiatives to determine the effectiveness of these initiatives in improving Ohio teachers’ knowledge and skills for effectiveness of classroom mathematics and science instruction.

Mr. Horwood served as the internal evaluator of the Appalachia Regional Comprehensive Center from 2013–2015, where he assessed the implementation and impact of capacity-building technical assistance provided to SEAs in Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia. In providing TA to SEAs and LEAs, Mr. Horwood has directed projects at the federal and state levels similar to the scope required for the proposed center. Mr. Horwood served as a Manager for ED’s Reform Support Network from 2011–2012, where he directed the Teacher and Leader Effectiveness and the Strategic Communications communities of practice with SEA staff where he engaged content experts to facilitate webinars, create tools, convene SEA professionals, facilitate workgroups, and develop publications.

Over his career he has evaluated federally funded grant programs for SEAs and other education organizations in Ohio, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, South Dakota, Maine, Hawai’i, Alabama, and Florida that have focused on charter schools, teacher professional development, teacher induction and mentoring, career pathways, virtual learning, adolescent literacy, STEM education, dropout prevention and recovery, out-of-school interventions, and college and career readiness.