The National At-Risk Education Network

Advisory Board Members

Anthony Dallmann-Jones, PhD

NAREN Director

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D ^r Fred Bemak

Fred Bemak is currently a Professor and Program Coordinator of the Counseling and Development Program at George Mason University and was formerly head of the Counseling Departments at Johns Hopkins University and Ohio State University. He has worked extensively with at-risk youth directing federally funded and state funded programs, and has been the recipient of numerous private and public grants. Fred is a former Fulbright Scholar, Kellogg International Fellow, and World Rehabilitation Fellow, has given seminars, consulted and provided training in 30 countries and throughout the United States. He is the author of over 50 articles and book chapters, and four books including Violent and Aggressive Youth: Intervention and Prevention Strategies for Changing Times.

Joe Clark

Joe was the source of the story for the 1989 movie Lean On Me starring Morgan Freeman as a bullhorn-toting principal of a New Jersey east-side high school. Today he speaks regularly around the country on at-risk education and is the Director of the Essex County Juvenile Detention Center in Newark, New Jersey.

Jerry Conrath

Author of numerous books on discouraged learners, Jerry has 20 years of public school teaching experience and has helped organize and direct two schools-within-schools for at-risk kids. Jerry is now retired, but still active doing conference speaking and offering the Our Other Youth Seminars, which he founded.

Elvira Cruz

Elvira is a social worker and therapist with Providence Service Corporation in McAllen, Texas. For the last 12 years she has worked with adolescents and sexual abuse survivors.

Gail Dusa

Gail is the author of six books on at-risk education and self-esteem, and has 25 years teaching experience. She is currently conducting at-risk education workshops with teachers and schools systems across the United States.

D ^r Steven Farmer

Steven is the author of four books on recovery from dysfunctional family issues. He is a trauma recovery specialist and therapist in Laguna Beach, California.

Wm. David Fisher, Dean

In his public education days, David was assistant principal at Colonel White High School in Dayton, Ohio during the race riots of the 1960s. Later he was an assistant principal at inner city Hammond Tech High School in Hammond Indiana. In the 1990s David started an alternative school in Gillette, Wyoming. He is presently Dean of Agricultural, Health & Technical Education at Sheridan College, Sheridan, Wyoming.

Marcus Gentry

For more than 20 years Marcus has worked as a professional in the field of social services. He began his career in a locked, co-ed residential facility for aggressive adolescents in Chicago. From there, he supervised workers in a co-ed, detox unit for chemically dependent adults. After that, he was afforded the opportunity to identify and counsel youth at-risk for substance abuse in Cook county alternative schools. His last position was the substance abuse coordinator for Cook County, where he provided assessments and counseling services to the residents of public housing from preteen to senior citizens.

Alex Gorodinski

Alex was a former principal of Jelgavas Technical Lyceum (Jelgavas, Latvia), a school for 850 at-risk youth, ages 14-19. He also served as principal of Kalupe Internatz School (Kalupe, Latvia), a school for 300 orphaned children, ages 4-18. Alex is still working with at-risk youth in Denver, Colorado's Manual High School Prep Program.

David Johnson, PhD

David W. Johnson is a Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Minnesota where he holds the Emma M. Birkmaier Professorship in Educational Leadership. He is Co-Director of the Cooperative Learning Center. He received a masters and a doctoral degree from Columbia University. He is a past-editor of the American Educational Research Journal. He has published over 350 research articles and book chapters. He is the author of over 40 books (most co-authored with R. Johnson) including:

• The Social Psychology of Education
• Social Psychology: Issues and Insights
• Reaching Out: Interpersonal Effectiveness and Self-Actualization
• Joining Together: Group Theory and Group Skills
• Learning Together and Alone: Cooperative, Competitive, Individualistic Learning
• Productive Conflict Management: Perspectives for Organizations
• Circles of Learning: Cooperation in the Classroom
• Teaching Students To Be Peacemakers
• Creative Controversy: Intellectual Challenge in the Classroom
• Cooperation and Competition: Theory and Research
• Active Learning: Cooperative Learning in the College Classroom
• Meaning & Manageable Assessment Through Cooperative Learning
• Learning To Lead Teams: Developing Leadership Skills

Roger Johnson, PhD

Roger Johnson has been the recipient of several national awards including the Research Award in Social Studies Education presented by the National Council for the Social Studies, the Helen Plants Award from the American Society for Engineering Education, the Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Award from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (Division 9 of the American Psychological Association), the Alumni of the year award from Teachers College, Ball State University, and the Outstanding Contribution to Research and Practice in Cooperative Learning award from the American Educational Research Association Special Interest Group on Cooperative Learning.

Roger is currently the co-director of the Cooperative Learning Center at the University of Minnesota, which conducts research and training nationally and internationally on changing the structure of classrooms and schools to a more cooperative environment.

Frank Kros

Frank Kros is a career child advocate, who has served as a childcare worker, child abuse investigator, children's home administrator, consultant, college professor, attorney, writer and speaker. He joined The Children's Guild as vice president of programs in 2000 and became executive vice president in 2002. Prior to arriving at The Guild, Mr. Kros practiced law with Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps in San Diego, California, where his practice focused on children's issues. He also has served as vice president for curriculum and training at Children's Square U.S.A. in Council Bluffs, Iowa; as a child abuse service officer for the Douglas County Juvenile Court in Omaha, Nebraska; and as a family teacher at Father Flanagan's Boy's Home (Boy's Town). Mr. Kros currently serves as president of The Upside Down Organization and executive vice president of The Children's Guild, the largest private provider of special education services in Maryland.

NAREN is proud to sponsor Mr. Kros as a membe of the NAREN Speakers Bureau. Frank Kros is a nationally-recognized speaker and presents seminars to parents, educators, child-serving professionals and their leaders on various topics including stress and the brain, brain-based learning, aggressive and violent children, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), neuroscience of the teenage brain and brain-compatible organizational leadership. He has presented his workshops at national education, social work and neuroscience conferences, and Mr. Kros was awarded a Maryland Governor's Citation for his speaking efforts. In addition to lecturing nationwide, he co-authored the books Creating the Upside Down Organization: Transforming Staff to Save Troubled Children (2005) and The Upside Down Organization: Rethinking Group Care (2008). Mr. Kros received his law degree magna cum laude in 1993 from Notre Dame Law School, where he served on the Notre Dame Law Review. He also holds a master's degree in social work from the University of Nebraska at Omaha and a bachelor's degree in psychology from Creighton University.

Please contact Amy@NAREN.info if you might be interested in having Mr. Kros come to your district or conference and present or conduct a workshop.

Richard (Rich) Kunkel, PhD

Richard C. Kunkel serves as the Dean of the College of Education and Professor at Florida State University. He assumed that position in July 2001. Kunkel was the Wayne T. Smith Distinguished Professor Educational Leadership and Dean of Education at Auburn University's College of Education from January 1, 1990 through June 2001.

Rich Kunkel was elected to the Board of Directors of the Holmes Group and in 1998 was appointed to Holmes Partnership as Executive Director. The Holmes Partnership is a national organization of leading research universities in partnership with local schools and organizations in cooperation to improve student performance. Kunkel was also appointed to the National Research and Evaluation Advisory Panel of Teach for America and he served as the facilitator for the Disney Development Corporation's Celebration School Visioning Workshop as well as senior advisor to the Celebration School and Teaching Academy. In 1997, he testified at hearings on "The Higher Education Act" and later served as a proposal reader in preliminary and final selection of grants for school/university partnerships under Title II of the Higher Education Act.

Previously, Kunkel served as Executive Director of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Evaluation (NCATE) beginning in 1984. Prior to this position, Kunkel served as Dean of the College of Education at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Kunkel chaired the Department of Education at St. Louis University and served as Assistant to the President. Earlier he held a faculty position in Curriculum and Instruction at Ball State University and in the Burris Laboratory School at the institution. He began his career in education as a high school social studies teacher and later served as a counselor and administrator.

Rick Osterhaus

Rick is the assistant superintendent of Brown Deer School District near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He has many years of public school teaching and administrative experience. Rick is the current CEO and President of Ablenet, Inc. in the Twin Cities. Rick is the former assistant superintendent of Brown Deer School District near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He has many years of public school teaching and administrative experience.

Larry Rosen, EdD

Larry is president of Educational Designs Group, a professor at Stetson University and a Faculty Associate at Johns Hopkins University. He has more than 28 years experience in teaching and administration in K-12 schools, human service organizations, community colleges and universities. Most notably, Larry spent four years on full-time assignment with the Walt Disney Corporation developing educational designs.

Franklin Schargel

Franklin Schargel, a native of Brooklyn, New York now residing in Albuquerque, NM, is a graduate of the University of the City of New York. Franklin holds two Masters Degrees: one in Secondary Education from City University and a degree from Pace University in School Administration and Supervision. His career spans thirty-three years of classroom teaching and eight years of supervision and administration as Assistant Principal. In addition, Franklin taught a course in Dowling College's MBA Program.

Franklin is the author of 4 very pertinent books:

• Transforming Education Through Total Quality Management: A Practitioner's Guide
• Strategies to Help Solve Our School Dropout Problem
• Dropout Prevention Tools
• Helping Students Graduate: A Strategic Approach to Dropout Prevention