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Deborah M. Telfer, Ph.D.



Dr. Deborah Telfer is Director of the University of Dayton School of Education and Health Sciences Grant Center in Dublin, Ohio. She serves as principal investigator/project director of several federally funded initiatives, including the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) technical assistance and dissemination effort called Moving Your Numbers. As part of this work, she authored several publications including Moving Your Numbers: Five Districts Share How They Used Assessment and Accountability to Increase Performance for Students with Disabilities as Part of District-wide Improvement.

A school psychologist by training, Deb held a variety of leadership roles during her 23-year tenure at the Ohio Department of Education (ODE), including serving as associate and interim director of ODE’s Office for Exceptional Children, and executive director of the Department’s Center for School Improvement. In these roles, she supported the initiation of the Ohio Leadership Advisory Council and the Ohio Improvement Process, developed and oversaw implementation of Ohio’s State Personnel Development Grant (SPDG), and coordinated the development and growth of Ohio’s statewide system of support in partnership with other ODE offices and Ohio’s regional network of state support teams and educational service centers.

Dr. Telfer earned her B.S., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees from The Ohio State University in the areas of psychology, school psychology, and special education leadership and administration. Her work is primarily focused on systems design and partnership models to support the continuous and sustainable improvement of learning outcomes for all students, particularly students with disabilities and other marginalized groups of students.



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