Carol Apacki is currently a consultant with Quest International, an initiative of the International Youth Foundation. She has been closely involved in both the development and implementation of Lions-Quest K–12 programs. She also is the author of the Energize! book of cooperative games. Prior to her work with Quest International, she served in the Peace Corps in Thailand, taught high school social studies, and worked in teacher education at Denison University. She may be reached at carolapacki@cswebmail.com.
Alan Blankstein is founder and president of the HOPE Foundation (Harnessing Optimism and Potential through Education), the mission of which is to develop and connect courageous leaders who collaboratively reshape the culture of school communities to enhance achievement and improve the lives of all children. This takes place through national summits, regional conferences, the National Instructional Leaders Network, and long-term staff development in schools throughout North America. He formerly headed the National Educational Service (NES), which he founded in 1987 and directed for 12 years. He has published award-winning books and video programs, including Reclaiming Youth At Risk and Discipline with Dignity. He has authored scores of articles in Educational Leadership, The School Administrator, Executive Educator, and Reaching Today’s Youth, for which he also served as Senior Editor. He is the coauthor of the Reaching Today’s Youth curriculum with Rick DuFour and producer of PBS and the C-Span productions from the series Breaking the Cycle of Violence and Creating Learning Organizations, which featured international leaders from business, education, and government. Drawing on his own experiences as a former “high-risk” youth in New York, he speaks internationally on how to connect with young people and create high-performing school communities that provide discouraged staff and students with a sense of hope.
Ronald S. Brandt is Executive Editor Emeritus of Educational Leadership and other publications of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. He is the author of Powerful Learning (1998) and editor of Assessing Student Learning (1998) and Education in a New Era (2000). His articles have appeared in Principal, Phi Delta Kappan, Education Week, and Leadership News of the American Association of School Administrators. He currently holds an adjunct appointment as Senior Research Associate to the National Study of School Evaluation, Schaumburg, Illinois. He holds a doctorate from the University of Minnesota.
Linda Bruene Butler, M.Ed., is Clinical Administrator and Director of the Social Decision Making/Problem Solving Program, at the Behavioral Research and Training Institute, University Behavioral HealthCare, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. Her research interests include networking schools with advanced level SEL programming and exploring ways that distance learning and technology can promote professional development, training, and technical assistance to schools and represent a component of college course work for preservice educators.
Mindy Cohen, MA, CADC, is a licensed Professional Counselor and Rehabilitation Counselor, a Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor, Certified Prevention Specialist, Certified American Red Cross Mental Health Disaster Worker, a Psychotherapist Diplomate, and a Nationally Certified School Psychologist. Over the past two decades, Cohen has provided myriad professional services and earned many special awards in her field. She served as the District Crisis Psychologist, Substance Awareness Coordinator and Acting Principal for the Livingston, New Jersey, Board of Education. She was one of the first professionals to be certified by the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey’s Social Decision Making/Social Problem Solving Program as an SPS Trainer of Trainers. She has written numerous professional articles and is the author of Thin Kids (1985). In addition, she has served as a consultant, presenter, and trainer for various organizations including The Children’s Institute and Jewish Education Association.
James P. Comer, M.D., is Maurice Falk Professor of Child Psychiatry at the Yale University Child Study Center and Associate Dean of the Yale University School of Medicine. Comer is the Founder of the Yale School Development Program. His books include Maggie’s American Dream: The Life and Times of a Black Family; Waiting for a Miracle: Why Schools Can’t Solve Our Problems and How We Can; Rallying the Whole Village: The Comer Process for Reforming Education; and Child by Child: The Comer Process for Change in Education.
Bruce A. Ettinger, Ed.D., has been the Executive Director of The Children’s Institute, a widely recognized private special education school, for the past 21 years. He has expertise working with children who have emotional, behavioral, and learning disabilities; attention-deficit disorders; autism; and pervasive developmental delays; and with implementing innovative programs promoting social skills. He has assumed leadership roles in a number of organizations serving the disabled and serves as a speaker and consultant.
Norris M. Haynes, Ph.D., is Professor in the Counseling and School Psychology Department of Southern Connecticut State University and Director of its Center for School Action Research. He is also Associate Clinical Professor at the Yale University Child Study Center. His research interests include a focus on school climate factors and mental health interventions in promoting students’ social and emotional development, motivation, self-concept, learning, and achievement. His publications include the books Rallying the Whole Village: The Comer Process for Reforming Education and Child by Child: The Comer Process for Change in Education.
Marcia Knoll, Ed.D., began her career in education as a teacher and administrator in the New York City Public Schools and on Long Island. She is currently Associate Professor of Educational Administration and Supervision at Hunter College of CUNY. She has held memberships in the Professional Standards Board, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education Institutions Board of Examiners; consulted to Regional Labs, state education departments, county and school districts; and is Past President of Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Her most recent book is Administrator’s Guide to Student Achievement and Higher Test Scores (2002).
Jeffrey S. Kress, Ph.D., is Senior Research Assistant at the William Davidson School of Jewish Education and Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Jewish Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City. He has worked as a program development specialist at the Social Decision Making/Problem Solving Program at the Behavioral Research and Training Institute at University Behavioral HealthCare, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, where he was involved in training and consultation regarding a research-validated social skills and problem-solving curriculum.
Linda Lantieri has more than 30 years of experience in education as a teacher, administrator, and college faculty member. She is founding director of the Resolving Conflict Creatively Program of Educators for Social Responsibility and Director of the New York/Metro Satellite Office of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (www.CASEL.org). Lantieri is coauthor of Waging Peace in Our Schools (1996) and editor of Schools With Spirit: Nurturing the Inner Lives of Children and Teachers (2001). She may be reached at llantieri@rccp.org.
Catherine Lewis, Ph.D., is a member of the Education Department at Mills College in Oakland, CA. Her award-winning book Educating Hearts and Minds: Reflections on Japanese Preschool and Elementary Education focuses on how Japanese teachers foster social and academic development simultaneously. She directed formative research on the Child Development Project and currently directs a National Science Foundation-funded study of instructional improvement in Japan that highlights teacher-led “lesson study” (www.lessonresearch.net).
Jacqueline Norris, Ed.D., is an educator with more than 30 years of experience in New Jersey schools. She has taught at the elementary and secondary levels, been both a school- and district-level administrator, and is presently a Professor of Education at the College of New Jersey. As Assistant Superintendent, she implemented SEL in a district and now works to integrate the skills of SEL into teacher education at the college level.
Bilha Noy, Ph.D., is Head of the Counseling and School Psychology Service within the Ministry of Education of Israel. She has served as head of counseling service in a comprehensive school and as team leader in a school for senior workers in education. She established the Open Line for Children and has published in the areas of children’s rights, parent–school relationships, and violence prevention.
Mary Utne O’Brien, Ph.D., is Associate Director of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, where she directs efforts to form a network of national and regional organizations to provide training and support to leaders who champion SEL policy and practice. She works with educational leaders to identify the skills, information, and resources they need to implement effective SEL programming. O’Brien also works with other researchers and experienced practitioners to identify effective strategies for the implementation, monitoring, and assessment of SEL practice.
Therese O’Donnell, M.A., has been Principal of The Children’s Institute for the past 16 years. She is also a speech pathologist, has expertise working with children with a wide range of disabilities, and serves as a consultant and speaker.
Janet Patti, Ed.D., worked for more than 25 years as a teacher, counselor, and administrator in the public school systems of New York City and San Diego. She is Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Educational Administration and Supervision Program at Hunter College. She is also a member of the CASEL Leadership Team, coauthor of Waging Peace in Our Schools (1996), a lead trainer for Educators for Social Responsibility’s Don’t Laugh at Me Program, and is internationally recognized in the fields of conflict resolution, intergroup relations, and educational leadership.
Sharon Rose Powell, Ed.D., is the founding president of the Princeton Center for Leadership Training, a nonprofit organization with a 20-year record of delivering leadership development programs and services in schools and communities. Powell is a New Jersey Licensed Psychologist and Marriage and Family Therapist and a Contributing Faculty member at the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers University.
Margo Ross, Psy.D., is Director of New Jersey Peer to Peer (NJPTP) at the Princeton Center for Leadership Training. NJPTP is a statewide, youth leadership development program for middle schools focused on substance abuse prevention and social and emotional skill development. She is a Certified School Psychologist in New Jersey.
Eric Schaps is founder and president of the Developmental Studies Center in Oakland, CA, a nonprofit organization that specializes in designing educational programs and evaluating their effects on children’s academic, ethical, social, and emotional development. He is the author of three books and 60 chapters and articles on school improvement, prevention of problem behaviors, prosocial development, and program evaluation.
Chana Shadmi is associated with the Israel Psychological and Counseling Services division of the Israeli Ministry of Education in Jerusalem, and developed the “Windows” curriculam.
Timothy P. Shriver, Ph.D., is President and Chief Executive Officer of Special Olympics. In that capacity, he serves more than one million Special Olympics athletes and their families in 150 countries worldwide. Before joining Special Olympics in 1995, Shriver launched and was supervisor of the New Haven, CT, Public Schools’ Social Development Project, the country’s most noted school-based project focused on preventing substance abuse, violence, dropout, and teen pregnancy. Before launching the project, Shriver was a teacher in the New Haven public schools and a teacher and counselor in the University of Connecticut’s Upward Bound program. He has written extensively on effective school-based prevention programming and has coauthored several publications, including Promoting Social & Emotional Learning: Guidelines for Educators (1997). In recent years, he has applied his educational interests to film. He is the coproducer of DreamWorks Studios’ 1997 release Amistad and Disney Studios’ 2000 release The Loretta Claiborne Story.
Frank Wallace has worked with children and teachers for 40 years. As Headmaster of Colorado Academy, he taught a weekly seminar for teachers on child and adolescent development. He has written on childhood and schooling for journals and public radio. Between 1992 and 1999, he was Headmaster of North Country School, the setting for his essay included in this volume. He is the founder and president of Educational Consultants.com. He may be reached at www.educationalconsultants.com or at fwallace@maine.rr.com.
Marilyn Watson recently retired from the Developmental Studies Center (DSC) in Oakland, CA, where she had been Program Director of the Child Development Project, and headed DSC’s work in the area of preservice education. Prior to her work at DSC, Watson was a faculty member in the education department at Mills College in Oakland and the Director of the Mills College Children’s School.
Roger Weissberg is a Professor of Psychology and Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). He is Executive Director of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). He directs UIC’s National Institute of Mental Health-funded Prevention Research Training Program in Urban Children’s Mental Health. He has received awards for designing, evaluating, and disseminating school-based prevention programs including the Award for Distinguished Contribution of Applications of Psychology to Education and Training from the American Psychological Association.