Patricia Almond

Patricia Almond is a nationally recognized expert in the areas of assessment and students with disabilities particularly related to assessment accommodations, alternate assessments for students with low incidence disabilities, and statewide assessment systems: (a) CO-EAG (2003- 05) Investigating the efficacy of two different formats for alternate assessment: performance tasks and portfolios across seven states with CO as the lead state; (b) DAATA (2004-06)— producing a handbook for states explaining how to document technical adequacy for alternate assessments; (c) SALLSA (2007-09)—conducting alignment studies in PA, GA, WA, and WY; (d) OK-GSEG (2007-10)—examining the validity of an alternate reading assessment in OK; (d) UT-EAG (2008-10)—developing alternate assessment mathematics content with UT, ID, and FL; and (e) Until 2004, Dr. Almond was the director for alternate assessment and accommodations for Oregon’s statewide assessment system and was the primary architect for Oregon’s alternate assessments. She facilitated the Oregon Accommodations Panel, which interpreted research and evaluated the validity of accommodations to Oregon assessments in reading, writing, mathematics, and science. She worked on several recent federally funded projects related to including students with disabilities in statewide accountability systems. Since 2000 she has consulted directly with the states of CO, AK, PA, GA, WA, WY, OK, UT, ID, and FL on the design, implementation, and validity of their alternate assessments.
pjalmond@uoregon.edu