MAESP Spring Conference Scheduled for March 13-16, 2010 "Leading and Learning For All Children"
The 2010 MAESP Spring Conference will be held March 13-16, 2010 at Tan-Tar-A Resort in Osage Beach, MO.
The Sunday evening speaker will be Diane Hodges. Dr. Diane Hodges has a passion for education – everything we want it to do and everything it is designed to do. An authority on improving education at many levels, she is also an irresistibly upbeat, polished and professional speaker on those issues that matter most – in your school.
An award-winning career educator for more than 25 years, Diane has served as a Human Resources Director, Principal, Counselor, University Instructor, Director of Instructional Services, and Executive Director of Career and Technical Education. In 1998 she founded the Threshold Group, an international consulting firm specializing in staff training and development. She is the author of five highly acclaimed books that have become must-reads at schools and organizations across the country.
Is your school a great place to work?
Diane is a national expert on staff dynamics, development and training. Like educators everywhere, she is all too aware that staff recruitment and retention are critical issues facing school districts today. Her latest book and presentation series - Looking Forward to Monday Morning - is packed with ideas you can use immediately to make your school the kind of place where you and your colleagues want to be – and stay! Over a period of five years, with the help of fellow educators nationwide, she compiled hundreds of simple, fun, low-cost ways to give staff members what it turns out they want most – simple recognition and appreciation for a job well done! The results across the nation have been nothing less than astonishing!
Are your students ready to go on to bigger and better things?
Diane is one of the nation’s foremost authorities on portfolios and personal "sales" tools, for both high school and college students. She now trains thousands of educators, students, and individuals internationally on how to use her Student Managed Portfolio System and Your Professional Portfolio: A "Visual" Résumé.
Solidly grounded on every count, Diane brilliantly blends her vast experience in the day-to-day realities of running a school with the equally important business of making that school a great place to learn and work – to create the results we all want most from education!
Diane’s Awards Include:
Educator of the Year, Phi Delta Kappa, Michigan State University
Educator of the Year, Association for Career & Technical Education, Region I
Ralph Wenrich Leadership Award, Michigan Council of Vocational Administrators
Administrator of the Year, Michigan Council of Vocational Administrators
Partnership Award, National and Texas Tech Prep Network
The Tuesday morning speaker will be Sonia Manzano. Sonia Manzano has been a presence on Public Television since the 1970's.
Raised in the South Bronx, she attended the High School of Performing Arts. A scholarship took her to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, and in her junior year, she came to New York to star in the original production of the off-Broadway show, Godspell.
Within a year Sonia was cast as "Maria" on Sesame Street. After ten years as an actress, Sonia began writing scripts for the series and has fifteen Emmy Awards as part of the Sesame Street writing staff. Sonia also wrote for the Peabody Award winning children's series, Little Bill, for Nickelodeon and for a short time wrote a parenting column for the Sesame Workshop web site called Talking Outloud.
She returned to the New York stage starring in The Vagina Monologues and The Exonerated.
Sonia has received awards from The Congressional Hispanic Caucus in Washington D.C. and The Hispanic Heritage Foundation, and she received an honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from Nortre Dame University in 2004. Closer to home, she was inducted into the Bronx Hall of Fame in 2005.
Sonia was twice nominated for an Emmy Award as "Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series."
Her first picture book No Dogs Allowed! was published in April 2004. General Mills gave away 1.5 million copies of No Dogs Allowed! in boxes of Cheerios, as part of their Spoonfuls of Reading program.
No Dogs Allowed! was turned into a musical which was presented by the Actor's Playhouse at the Miracle Theater in Coral Gables, Florida on June 2006. www.NoDogsAllowedMusical.com
Her second book A Box Full Of Kittens was published June 2007.
Currently she is writing a blog for Catalina Magazine and working on a memoir.
Manzano enjoys traveling the country on the lecture circuit, enfusing humor into serious topics.
She lives in New York City with her husband Richard, and their daughter Gabriela. For more information please visit her web site www.soniamanzano.com.
Register for Balanced Leadership
