As an educator and recognized leader, Cassandra Erkens has served as a senior high school English teacher, a director of staff development at the district level, a school improvement facilitator at the state level, and a director of staff and organization development in the private sector.
Cassandra has served as an adjunct faculty member at Hamline University and Cardinal Stritch University where she took teachers through customized graduate education courses and 2 year graduate degree programs. She has authored and coauthored a wide array of published trainings, and she has designed and delivered the training of trainers programs for two major education-based companies. She serves as an external consultant to both the assessment and Professional Learning Communities at Work efforts at Solution Tree.
Currently, Cassandra serves as one of the lead assessment architects to the Solution Tree Assessment Center. She works closely with co-authors Nicole Vagle and Tom Schimmer and a host of renowned thought leaders in the field of assessment to develop the resources, trainings, and support mechanisms to help educators develop assessments systems that build hope, efficacy, and achievement for all learners in the school setting.
She is an author, keynote speaker, trainer, and facilitator, working with both large and small groups. Cassandra is driven by her passion to support learners of all ages in building hope and efficacy, and increasing achievement, day by day and moment by moment.
Dillon, P., Erkens C., Sanna, D., and Savastano, L. (June 2015). Crowd Learning: 8 Districts
Pool Resources to Focus on Assessment Literacy. Journal of Staff Development.
pp. 28 - 32.
Erkens, C. (2016). Collaborative common assessments: Teamwork. Instruction. Results.
Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.
Erkens, C. (2017 - in press). The Handbook for Collaborative common assessments: Tools for
Design, Delivery and Data Analysis. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.
Erkens, C. (2009). Developing our assessment literacy. In T. Guskey (Ed.), The teacher as
assessment leader. (pp. 11-30). Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.
Erkens, C. (2008). Growing teacher leadership. In The collaborative administrator: Working
together as a professional learning community. . (pp. 38 - 53). Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.
Erkens, C. (2008). The new teacher leader: Transforming education from inside the classroom.
In The collaborative teacher: Working together as a professional learning community.
(pp. 10 - 28). Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.
Erkens, C. (2009). Paving the way for an assessment rich culture. In T. Guskey (Ed.), The
principal as assessment leader. (pp. 9 - 28). Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.
Erkens, C. and Twadell, E. (2012). Leading by design: An action framework for PLC leaders at work.
Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.