Pete Hall is an award-winning school principal and author or co-author of 12 books, including Fostering Resilient Learners and Relationship, Responsibility, and Regulation with Kristin Van Marter Souers and his recent social psychology life guide, Always Strive to Be a Better You: How Ordinary People Can Live Extraordinary Lives.

He is also co-author, with Kristin Van Marter Souers and Keith Orchard, of The Fostering Resilience Workbook: Strategies and Steps to Support Our Learners, Elementary Edition. He has worked in education for 30 years and provided professional development support to educators across the globe.

Deborah Childs-Bowen was an internationally recognized transformational educator having served in diverse roles as teacher, principal, district administrator, educational researcher, and university professor. She was past president of Learning Forward (NSDC) and a Marzano consultant. Her knowledge, expert facilitation, executive coaching, and school improvement practices enhanced transferring research into application. Deborah was a contributing author to books, toolkits, and professional journals through SERVE, ASCD, NSDC, Corwin, and NASSP. She was chief learning officer with Creative Mind Enterprise, building capacity and equitable learning opportunities that improved practice for educators and learning for all students. Childs-Bowen passed away in 2019.

Ann Cunningham-Morris is an independent consultant and ASCD Faculty member who has served educators for over 40 years. During her career, she has been a director of professional learning for a non-profit education organization, district-level instructional administrator, school-based administrator, teacher leader, and classroom teacher. Cunningham-Morris regularly facilitates webinars, coaching, and professional learning throughout the world in the areas of leadership development, strategic planning, system and program audits, curriculum development, designing effective professional learning programs, instructional leadership, instructional coaching, teacher leadership, formative assessment, instructional best practices, and equity best practices. She has written articles, blogs, and provided expert interviews on these topics for a variety of professional publications, including ASCD Inservice, District Administrator, Curriculum Administrator, and the Journal of Staff Development.

Cunningham-Morris is also co-author of the book The Principal Influence: A Framework for Developing Leadership Capacity in Principals (ASCD, 2016). She has presented sessions at many national conferences, including ASCD, ESEA, AASA, NASSP, NAESP, and Learning Forward. She received a bachelor's degree from the University of Georgia and a master's degree in curriculum and instruction from Georgia State University. She has completed the Certificate of Advanced Studies program and post-graduate work in educational leadership at Illinois State University, the nonprofit executive leadership program at Georgetown University, and most recently, a certificate in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Workplace from the University of South Florida MUMA College of Business.

Phyllis Pajardo presents nationally on topics such as leadership and instructional best practices. She is superintendent for City of Fairfax Schools (FCPS) in Virginia, one of the nation's largest school districts. While at FCPS, Pajardo has held a variety of positions including teacher, assistant principal, principal, staff developer, and cluster assistant superintendent. As cluster assistant superintendent, she was responsible for the instructional, management, and administrative oversight of 28 schools. Her major responsibilities included monitoring school improvement and student achievement, mentoring principals and school-based administrators, brokering and advocating services and resources within the district for the Cluster II schools, and acting as a liaison to parents and parent groups.

Pajardo was also the Learning, Empowering, Assessing, and Developing (LEAD) Fairfax project manager in FCPS, where she was responsible for putting the LEAD Fairfax plan into action, which included coordinating curriculum design, program enhancements, stakeholder engagement, communication, and program evaluation.

School-turnaround specialist and veteran educator Alisa Simeral guides school-based reform efforts as a teacher leader, instructional coach, school administrator, professional developer, and instructional leadership consultant, promoting her mantra, "When our teachers succeed, our students succeed." She supports educational organizations worldwide in their efforts to shift from cultures of compliance to cultures of commitment.

Simeral's resolve to help schools develop cultures of reflective practice is a major focus of her research, writing, speaking, and teaching. Her emphasis is, and always has been, improving the adult-input factors that contribute to the betterment of the student-output results. Simeral is coauthor of numerous books, including several bestsellers. Her most recent include Pursuing Greatness; Empowering Teachers to Take Charge of Their Professional Growth, Creating a Culture of Reflective Practice: Capacity-Building for Schoolwide Success, and The Principal Influence: A Framework for Developing Leadership Capacity in Principals.