Sandra Covington Smith

Sandra Covington Smith is a research associate at the National Dropout Prevention Center for Students with Disabilities (NDPC-SD) at Clemson University.  She develops technical assistance documents used by state and local education agencies, policymakers, and parents.  She develops, coordinates, and provides capacity building training and technical assistance to state and local education agencies in the development of effective dropout prevention interventions and models based on assessment of recipient needs, including the causal analysis of dropout effects and selection of appropriate strategies that represent “best fit,” based on state and local level data.  Sandra holds a Ph.D. in special education/behavior disorders with an emphasis in early childhood education from the University of Missouri-Columbia.  She is a certified Positive Behavior Support (PBS) trainer through the MU Center for School-wide PBS.  Sandra is the lead faculty for PBS with the Urban Special Education Leadership Collaborative.  She serves as the ethnic multicultural member-at-large elect of the Council for Children with Behavior Disorders Executive Committee.