School districts
Understand program outcomes, strengthen surveys, and prepare evidence for district leaders and grant reporting.
DASS / Public-sector evaluation
Independent evaluation your board, your auditor, and your state funder can rely on.
Program evaluation and data analysis for school districts, state education agencies, and courts. Clear deliverables, an agreed schedule, and a data-handling plan built around your requirements.
Download our capability statement (PDF)Read the capability statement online (HTML)Discuss an evaluation →State education agencies
Turn complex education data into findings that support program oversight and policy decisions.
Courts
Evaluate court services and access to justice through careful analysis of participant experiences and outcomes.
Relevant experience
Public questions.
Careful methods.
Selected experience from our team's funded research and consulting. Agency names describe team experience, not endorsements or current contracts.
Reading and mathematics achievement, grades 3–8
Through the National Center on Assessment and Accountability for Special Education (NCAASE), Dr. Nedim Yel worked directly with student-level statewide achievement test data from North Carolina and Arizona in reading and mathematics for grades 3–8.
NCAASE studied achievement growth and assessment accountability for students with and without disabilities using longitudinal state assessment data.
About the NCAASE research project →Mapping California’s digital divide during COVID-19
As Senior Data Scientist at the California Department of Education and a Strategic Data Project Fellow, Dr. Nedim Yel geocoded nearly four million student addresses using R and combined FCC broadband and Ookla network data in QGIS to examine potential connectivity gaps.
He explored multiple routes to usable evidence, including a school-specific connectivity survey. Changes to student information systems would take 18–24 months, while voluntary survey participation would leave gaps.
Decision supported: A geographic starting point for state leaders addressing the digital divide. Mapped availability did not establish household subscriptions or reliable service.
Read the Harvard Strategic Data Project profile →Understanding Connecticut educators’ experiences during and after COVID-19
Dr. Nedim Yel is a coauthor, credited as a consultant, of a June 2026 report from the Center for Connecticut Education Research Collaboration, a partnership between the Connecticut State Department of Education and higher education institutions.
The Part 1 report draws on 1,093 teacher survey responses and interviews with teachers and administrators in six districts to examine changes in practice, sources of strain, and support. Survey analyses include descriptive and inferential statistics and ordinal logistic regression.
Decision supported: Recommendations for district and state leaders on educator support, professional learning, and the pace of new initiatives. Findings describe six purposively selected districts and are not statewide estimates.
Read Teachers and School Leaders, Part 1 (PDF) →A belonging intervention across 22 colleges
Statistical support on a multi-site randomized controlled trial testing whether a belonging intervention improves STEM outcomes for women and underrepresented students.
Explore selected work →Indiana courts: Accessing Justice with Zoom
Dr. Nedim Yel is a coauthor, affiliated with DASS, of the 2023 Indiana University report Accessing Justice with Zoom. The study analyzed responses from 1,878 unrepresented court users, with research conducted across 40 courts in 12 Indiana counties.
He managed, cleaned, and prepared court data, conducted the analysis, and contributed to report writing.
When a ready-to-use data export was unavailable, he developed a court-authorized scraping workflow to collect the relevant case records and prepare them for analysis.
Read the case study →Read Accessing Justice with Zoom (PDF on Google Drive) →
A proposed engagement structure
Know what is due.
Know when to expect it.
Each proposal defines the questions, deliverables, responsibilities, and review dates before work begins.
01 /
Kickoff
Confirm the decision, reporting requirements, available data, and project responsibilities.
02 /
Evaluation plan
Agree on measures, analysis methods, data access, and the deliverable schedule.
03 /
Interim findings
Review early results and data limitations before the final reporting stage.
04 /
Final report
Receive findings, methods, limitations, and a presentation or handoff as scoped.
Proposed fee approach: Phased, not-to-exceed fees with defined deliverables. Pricing and dates assume client-supplied data in the agreed format by the agreed date. Additional preparation, delayed data, or scope changes are addressed through an agreed change order. Final terms are set in the proposal.
Data access and reporting
Plan the work around your environment.
DASS can work within a client's approved system or remote desktop environment. Access arrangements and data-handling responsibilities are agreed for each engagement.
- Client-approved accessDefine where data is accessed, who has permission, and which outputs may be exported.
- Student-data requirementsDiscuss your FERPA-related requirements and required data-sharing agreements during scoping.
- Documented methodsSpecify code, documentation, and reproducibility deliverables in the proposal.
Survey & assessment shortening
Shorter surveys.
Defensible measurement.
Survey fatigue uses up participant time and staff capacity. Explore whether a shorter instrument can preserve the measurement quality your reporting needs.
Try the free Short-Form Builder →How it works
Item response theory helps examine which items contribute useful measurement information. A proposed short form needs validation for its intended population and use. Reliability and score agreement must be evaluated before replacing an existing instrument.
Your statistical lead
Methods expertise.
Direct collaboration.
Dr. Nedim Yel
PhD with a specialization in Measurement, Statistics, and Methodological Studies.
Work directly with a statistician to connect the evaluation questions, available data, and reporting requirements.
Practical problem-solving: When data or systems fall short, evaluate the alternatives against scale, privacy, and operational constraints, then build a feasible path to useful evidence.
Meet Nedim →Procurement information
A clear introduction for your purchasing team.
Our one-page capability statement covers services, selected project experience, qualifications, and contact information.
Download capability statement (PDF)Read online (HTML)Planning a purchase?
Contact DASS to discuss your evaluation scope, submission requirements, and any additional documentation your organization needs. The capability statement is available now; a full procurement packet has not yet been prepared.
Ask about scope or purchasing requirements →