Dr. Es Swihart - Consultant
A believer in the transformative power of reflection and coaching, Dr. Es Swihart has worked as both an instructional coach and Jungian coach. Her dissertation research on the impact of the teacher-student relationship on student self-worth, learning, and engagement underscores her belief that coaching educators positively benefits students. In over a decade and a half in education, Es has worked with students of all types, represented Sarasota County as their 2018 Teacher of the Year, and served on the board at the Education Foundation of Sarasota County. She is currently the Dean of Middle and Upper School Academics at the Out-of-Door Academy. She earned her doctorate in Education, with a focus on Mind, Brain, and Teaching, at Johns Hopkins University.
Sophie Teitelbaum - Consultant
Sophie is excited by the opportunity to re-envision our education system, to think big and be radical in our approach. She is passionate about designing equitable, antiracist systems that meet the needs of all learners, while also meeting educators where they are. She believes collaboration in decision making is essential and also a learned skill. Sophie has served as the leader of professional learning communities and as the chair of Student Success Teams. She has coached teachers, mentored student teachers, and facilitated professional learning focused on pedagogy, long-term planning and curriculum development, using data to inform decision-making and instruction, literacy across the content areas, and antiracist practices in classrooms and larger school systems. She has led collaborative efforts to design (and re-design) school-wide systems and practices to better support student academic, social emotional, and mental health needs.
Sophie earned a BA in Sociology from UC Berkeley in 2011 and a MA in Teaching from Relay Graduate School of Education, where she graduated with distinction in 2016 while teaching full time. Her MAT focuses on secondary English and adolescent literacy development. Sophie was selected into the class of 2021 Emerging Leaders fellowship through ASCD.
Sophie began teaching high school English in New Orleans in 2011. In 2018, Sophie founded a highschool as the Director of Curriculum and Instruction. When the pandemic raged in the summer of 2020, Sophie decided to return to the classroom - she knew that if she was going to support students, families, and teachers in the long term, she needed to have first hand experience teaching during the pandemic. In 2021, Sophie moved to California, back to her roots, where she continues to teach.
Dana Van Deinse - Consultant
Dana Van Deinse is an educational leader supporting teaching, learning and the development of innovative educational models. She has led the creation of multiple online, hybrid and blended learning programs to support K-12 populations, including autistic students. With a strong belief that all students can learn and succeed with personalized support and coaching, creating engagement strategies for all stakeholders is always of utmost importance.
Dana is an expert leadership coach, entrepreneur, accomplished speaker, and champion for online and blended education She is skilled at approaching program development and school improvement from a multi-stakeholder lens. She served on the team that developed the accreditation quality benchmarks for educational corporations and digital learning schools around the world.
Ms. Van Deinse earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of Wisconsin-Stout, a Post-Bac teaching certificate from Arizona State University, and a Master's degree in Educational Leadership from Northern Arizona University. She currently serves as a Director for the ASD Program at Edkey, LLC, an educational consultant and as a Co-Instructor at Arizona State University.
Dr. James Whitfield - Consultant
Dr. James Whitfield is an award-winning educator with a passion for supporting youth and educators. That passion springs from a deep sense of purpose connected to the teachers who helped change the course of his life. Over his journey of nearly two decades in education he’s served as a classroom teacher, assistant principal, leadership strategist, and principal at the middle and high school levels. Dr. Whitfield is deeply committed to ensuring that all students have access to a robust, engaging learning environment that recognizes their genius, removes systemic barriers, and provides innovative, transformational solutions in the face of whatever odds they may face so they may be prepared for a bright and prosperous future. Dr. Whitfield received his Bachelors in Social Science and Masters in Educational Leadership from Southwestern Adventist University and his Doctorate in Educational Leadership from Dallas Baptist University.
Trinity Wilbourn - Consultant
Trinity is an educator working at the intersection of Social Emotional Learning, Mind/Body Coaching, and Neuroscience. With over twenty years combined experience creating and presenting curriculum, training facilitators, and coaching individuals, classrooms, and peer support groups, including eleven years experience in online, brick and mortar, and blended learning environments, Trinity brings a multidisciplinary wealth of tools to her offerings. She has taught Humanities, World Lit, US Lit, Creative Writing, Drama, Reading Recovery, Philosophy, Advisory/Life Skills, Integrated Services, as well as running her school’s GED program and founding one of the 1st Mindfulness programs in her school district.
Additionally, she has over a decade of experience building a nonprofit focused on identity exploration, resiliency cultivation, and long-term holistic health for educators, activists, and community space-holders called Arkitekt.
She is a SourcePoint Therapy Practitioner, a Mindful Schools trained Mindfulness Instructor, a candidate in The Embody Lab’s Mind/Body Coaching Program, and has received training in Safe & Sound, a program designed by Stephen Porges using sound to heal trauma, as well as being a student of Jalaja Bonheim’s Circlework lineage.
She specializes in working with at-risk, historically marginalized, and neurodivergent youth populations. Her passion is to equitably and inclusively coach educators to reclaim their joy, move from the relentless pace of burnout to a sustainable and generous rhythm of work and life, and co-create vibrant communities of learning that act as humanized practice rooms for people to become more congruent and fully alive.
Her background in vocal performance, embodied movement, theatre, storytelling, interior design, education, collage journaling, writing, curriculum design, collaboration, white allyship, mentoring, mothering, and intuitive practices are all part of her multidisciplinary offerings.
Maria Worthen - Consultant
Maria Worthen, MSW is the Founder and Principal Consultant at Education Policy Strategies LLC. She is a mission-oriented, K-12 education policy expert who is driven to inspire and empower others who are passionate about this work to create real and lasting change. Her work uniquely spans both policy and practice: she divides her time between consulting with national education and youth-focused organizations at Education Policy Strategies and the public high school where she is a social worker. Her real-world insights into the realities of post-pandemic public education are valuable and rare in the field of education policy and research.
As the Vice President of Federal & State Policy at the Aurora Institute (formerly iNACOL), Maria led the development of the Center for Policy Advocacy and provided testimony, lawmaker education, and technical assistance to the White House, U.S. Department of Education, and to hundreds of state policymakers. She published numerous articles and papers on federal accountability and assessment and state policies that support competency-based education, personalized learning, online learning, and blended learning.
Maria served as Education Policy Advisor to Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa on his staff of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. She also worked at the US Department of Education, serving in the Office of Legislation and Congressional Affairs, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, and the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, and at the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement. She was a 2003 Presidential Management Fellow.
Maria started her career as a preschool teacher. She holds a B.A. in Government and Italian Language and Literature from Smith College and a Masters in Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis. She is based in Falls Church, Virginia, USA.
Dr. Jacqueline Zweig - Consultant
Dr. Jacqueline Zweig is the Founder and Principal Researcher at EdResearch Solutions, a woman-owned business committed to improving educational opportunities and outcomes for students through research and evaluation. Dr. Zweig brings over a decade of experience leading applied research and evaluation studies in partnership with education leaders from state education agencies, districts, and digital learning programs. Drawing on her deep expertise in quantitative methods and educational improvement, she believes that research can help education leaders make evidence-based decisions about the design and implementation of programs, practices, and products. As a Senior Research Scientist at Education Development Center, Dr. Zweig conducted research focused on online learning and teacher professional learning. She was also the Deputy Director of the Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast & Islands, a $26 million Institute of Education Sciences contract to increase the use of research and data in decision-making. She holds a BA in Economics from Colby College and a PhD in Economics from the University of Southern California.