Sandi Cole

Sandi Cole is the director of the Center on Education and Lifelong Learning at the Indiana Institute on Disability and Community at IU Bloomington. Before joining the university, she spent 22 years as a public-school teacher and administrator at both the elementary and secondary levels.

Cole has conducted numerous program evaluations for school districts and states and has directed large-scale federal and state grant projects. She has been awarded over $20 million in grants during her tenure at Indiana University. 

She has directed the Special Education Leadership program in the IU School of Education for the past 10 years and consulted extensively with school districts across the country on designing schools that are inclusive of all students. Her research includes three large-scale studies of student achievement outcomes for students with disabilities in inclusive settings, four key research projects on Indiana’s teacher evaluation system, a study on charter schools, and a recent study on special education placement and race.

Areas of Expertise

Inclusion of students with disabilities, ableism, implementation science.