Wendy B. Surr, M.A.
Research Associate
Wendy Surr has nearly 30 years experience in the fields of early childhood and after school care, with a diverse background both in creating and shaping after school policy and action for communities and in evaluating the quality and effectiveness of after school programs and staff development initiatives.
For the past 15 years, Surr has directed numerous research and evaluation projects. Over the past 10 years, she co-created the Afterschool Program Assessment System (APAS), an outcome-based evaluation system for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (MADESE) 21stCCLC grantees, including the development and testing of the SAYO-youth outcome and APT program quality assessment tools currently in use by programs in numerous states and the Province of Alberta, Canada. She recently acted as the Principal Investigator for a MA DESE funded project entitled, Youth Researchers in Action, a pilot initiative in six Massachusetts school districts designed to train and engage teens in quality assessment of their own after-school program.
Other current research and evaluation projects include Co-Principal Investigator for the APT Validation Study: Identifying and Minimizing Measurement Error, a W.T. Grant Foundation funded research study testing the APT tool; Principal Investigator for the Data Driven Program Improvement Project for teen programs in Philadelphia, PA; and lead developer of ToolFind.org, an on-line directory of outcome tools disseminated by the United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley.
Surr holds a B.A. in Psychology from Bard College and an M.A. in Early Childhood Development from Tufts University.
