Presenter ELA Biographies Common Core Learning Standards & Assessments effective frameworks and strategies for educators, youth professionals, and parents to help youth at risk succeed. An accomplished author, Dr. Mendler’s titles include Motivating Students Who Don’t Care, Connecting with Students, What Do I Do When …?, MORE What Do I Do When …?, Power Struggles: Successful Techniques for Educators, and Handling Difficult Parents. He co-authored Discipline With Dignity for Challenging Youth and As Tough as Necessary with Dr. Richard L. Curwin.
Robert March, Ph.D. is the director and founder of Successful Schools, Inc. which is a professional development and technical assistance organization comprised of university-based trainers with classroom experience. The mission of Successful Schools, Inc. is to transform empirical research into practical strategies. Successful Schools focuses on positive behavior support as it applies to the school-wide and classroom systems and the efficient and effective use of functional assessment methodology to develop individual support plans. Rob trains extensively across the country, helping schools implement PBIS.
Michael Nerney is a consultant in Substance Abuse Prevention and Education, with over thirty-three years’ experience in the field. He is an internationally known lecturer, and has served as a consultant to a number of federal and state agencies, including the Federal Office of Substance Abuse Prevention, the Bureau of Justice Assistance and the New York State Education Department. Mr. Nerney’s understanding of adolescent issues is drawn from twelve years’ experience as a teacher and a coach at the junior and high school levels, including three years with the Adirondack Mountain School, a residential school for boys. Mr. Nerney has provided consultation on drug courts and other areas of technical assistance to correctional systems in forty-nine states across the country. Mr. Nerney’s particular areas of expertise include Psycho-pharmacology, Adolescent Chemical Dependency, Relapse Prevention, Gender Differences in Communication, and Managing Violent Incidents.
Patty McGee is a Literacy Consultant with Gravity Goldberg, LLC. Patty’s passion and vision is to create learning environments where teachers and students discover their true potential and power. Patty’s favorite moments are when groups of teachers are working with students together collaboratively in the classroom. She does her best literacy research by practicing on her two children, age 9 and 15. Prior to her work as Literacy Consultant, she was Supervisor of Professional Learning in Literacy with the Northern Valley Curriculum Center. Previously, Patty was a fourth grade teacher, a Library Media Specialist, and a Literacy Coach. Patty received her Bachelor’s Degree in Elementary Education at Loyola University in Maryland, an Associate School Library Media Specialist certification through Rutgers University, and her M.Ed. in Teacher Leadership through Montclair State University. Patty has also studied literacy and literacy coaching through Teacher’s College Reading and Writing Project and Iona College. Mrs. McGee has received the Milken Educator Award (2002), worked as a consultant for Workman Publishing, Scholastic, and Corwin Press, and served on several committees for the New Jersey Department of Education. Furthermore, she has been an adjunct professor at Montclair State University and presenter at the NCTE, ASCD, and Learning Forward National Conference.
Jackie O’Donnell is Chief Operating Officer/Deputy Superintendent at Southern Westchester BOCES and formerly served as Assistant Superintendent for Regional Services. Jackie has played a leadership role in training school district personnel on the Regents Reform Agenda, Common Core, and Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR). Jackie serves as SW BOCES Network Team leader, working with the New York State Education Department to educate school districts to provide turnkey training on the implementation of the Regents Reform Agenda initiatives. Prior to joining the Southern Westchester BOCES team, Jackie held the position of assistant superintendent of Newark Valley Central School District. She has spent fourteen years as a teacher and twelve years as a school administrator. Jackie has served as an elementary principal, high school principal and assistant superintendent of schools.
Allen N. Mendler, Ph.D. is an educator and school psychologist, who lives in Rochester, New York. He has worked extensively with children of all ages in general and special education settings. He has consulted for many schools and day and residential centers throughout the world, providing training on classroom management, discipline, and motivating difficult students. As one of the internationally acclaimed authors of the original and newly revised Discipline With Dignity and many other publications, Dr. Mendler's emphasis is on developing
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