Joseph Costello

Joe brings a combination of classroom teaching, research, and program evaluation experience to DMGroup, and his experience as a high school teacher has instilled in him a commitment to public education. As a Director, Joe works closely with districts and state agencies across the country to improve student outcomes and district operational efficiency, including supporting districts with project management, academic return on investment, strategic budgeting, special education, and elementary and secondary scheduling.

DMGroup Project Experiences Include:

• Partnering with large, urban school districts to conduct initiatives inventories and document how they align resources to their strategic priorities in an effort to improve strategic budgeting and resource allocation.
• Working with an urban school district to conduct Academic Return on Investment evaluations of their core academic interventions, including collecting and analyzing quantitative data on student outcomes and building capacity through translating statistical analyses to a non-technical audience.
• Collaborating with a district of over 41,000 students to improve their supports for struggling students through refining their service delivery model, redefining the roles of key service providers, and assembling an inventory of key interventions as they relate to the district’s MTSS framework.
• Conducting comprehensive quantitative and qualitative analyses of school staffing and student enrollment practices for districts ranging from 10,000 to 80,000 students. Analyses include reviewing equity and consistency of class sizes, course rigor, and access to interventions and supports.

Other Professional Experiences Include:

• Joe began his career as a high school math teacher at a Title I, Turnaround high school in the Clark County School District in Las Vegas, Nevada. While teaching in Las Vegas, Joe served as a professional learning community (PLC) lead, partnered with the school’s graduation and student supports interventions, and mentored students as a coach of several sports teams.
• Joe also partnered with the national non-profit Communities in Schools to provide wraparound services to a cohort of high school seniors through a targeted graduation intervention initiative.

Education:

• M.Ed. in Teaching & Learning, Secondary Mathematics Education from the University of Nevada - Las Vegas.
• B.A. in Economics and B.A. in Labor and Development Studies from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, with a minor in Anthropology.