Presented by Dr. Luis Valentino, Superintendent, Coachella Valley Unified School District (CA); Oscar Otero, Principal, Conniston Community Middle School, The School District of Palm Beach County (FL); Dr. Jesús Armas, Principal, John I. Leonard High School, The School District of Palm Beach County (FL); and David Samore, Ed.D., CEO, David Samore & Associates, LLC

Sponsored by Mindsets Learning

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With demands for immediate results to determine appropriate strategies and allocation of funds, every school in the United States has struggled mightily with the additional challenges brought about by bringing effective education to K-12 schools in the era of COVID-19. Is anything working and, if so, why? What sort of pivoting in an ever-changing landscape has been required to continue to gain traction and move needles? How do regional challenges demand different or greater cultural relevancy?

Immediate takeaways for viewers include real-life strategies that work, creating academic traction for learners. Watch three secondary school administrators from different parts of the country to share and explore the innovations and adjustments they have put in place to create successes for students in this must-see conversation.

This recorded edWebinar is of interest to school, district, and education technology leaders of the middle and high school levels.

About the Presenters

Luis Valentino, Ed.D. is a career educator, consultant, podcaster, and publisher. He has spent most of his career serving in large urban school districts as a teacher, principal, and district administrator. He presently serves as Superintendent for the Coachella Valley Unified School District in Southern California.
His work focuses on providing sound leadership that affords students equitable access to powerful learning opportunities. Dr. Valentino is committed to leading toward the achievement of all students, with a targeted and universal focus on historically underserved students and their communities.
Dr. Valentino created the District Leader podcast, Wiredprofiles, an education digest, and Valgar Publishing. He taught at several universities, including UCLA and USC. He holds a BS from the University of Texas at Austin and master’s degrees from Pepperdine and Cal State universities. He also holds a doctoral degree from UCLA and an Advanced Leadership Certificate from Harvard University.

Oscar Otero began his career nearly 30 years ago teaching English in Nara, Japan. After four years abroad, he returned to Palm Beach County and taught high school French and Spanish before moving into leadership. He has served as a middle school principal for over a decade at an IB-MYP, Spanish Dual Language and AVID National Demonstration school. He is a graduate of the University of Florida (B.A.) and Florida Atlantic University (M.Ed.). He has three grown children with whom he loves to travel.

Dr. Jesús Armas is the principal of John I. Leonard High School, the largest school in Palm Beach County, Florida. Dr. Armas began his career as a science teacher and basketball coach in 1987. In 2006, he was appointed Principal of Lake Worth Middle School, and in 2010, Principal of Royal Palm Beach High School, both Title 1 schools. In 11 years at Royal Palm Beach High School, Dr. Armas led the school through a cultural and systemic reformation that helped produce, among other things, the school’s highest graduation rate of 95%.
The 2020 Palm Beach County Principal of the Year, Dr. Armas is a 1986 graduate of the University of Miami and earned his Ed.D. in educational leadership from Nova Southeastern University. The son of Cuban political refugees, Dr. Armas currently resides in Loxahatchee, Florida with his wife of 34 years, Teresa, and their son, Daniel.

Dr. David Samore has been a teacher and administrator of K-12 schools for 35 years in Iowa, Florida, South Carolina, Spain and Colombia, South America. Dr. Samore served as the Director of Global Leadership and Innovation in Palm Beach County, Florida and in 2015 was named the Florida Principal of the Year by the NASSP which highlighted his growth mindset for all students. As principal, Samore’s dual language immersion school was recognized twice as the School of the Year for North America by the Embassy of Spain. Dr. Samore was recently honored by King Felipe VI of Spain and conferred the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Isabel la Católica.

Dr. Samore is currently a guest lecturer at Universidad Cardenal Cisneros in Madrid, Spain and is CEO of David Samore & Associates, LLC, a private consulting practice which helps organizations fulfill their highest potential through common sense leadership and purposeful talent discovery. Dr. Samore also serves as an advisor to Mindsets Learning.

Closed captioning will be added to the recording within 2 weeks of the live presentation.

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Mindsets Learning re-engages students in math through inquiry-based, real-world challenges. Themes include sports, art, data science, entrepreneurship, environment, and many more for grades 4-8. www.mindsets.com