Theme: shiftED

The world isn’t what it used to be. Is our approach to education meeting the needs of a diverse student body and keeping pace with a dynamic employment landscape?
shiftED is an opportunity for people involved in all levels of education - from early childhood education to the workplace - to recognize what is working in education and explore new ways to meet the changing needs of students and employers.

The Grove
1300 Fifth St
Wenatchee, Washington, 98801
United States

Amy Kerker

Musician, Teacher, Runner and Cat Lover

Amy strives to teach every student to sing in tune, and one of her favorite things about teaching elementary music is hearing the improvement over the years as her students’ skills and confidence grow. Amy engages students with the energy of a frenzied cat. The Washington Elementary honor choir is a small group of singers from Washington Elementary’s 70-member 4th and 5th grade school choir. Many of these students have performed in the NCWMEA Honor Choir, and several have been selected for the WMEA All State Jr. Youth Choir. They are an energetic and musical group of students who love to sing! These students rehearse once a week before school and perform several times per year throughout the community.

Andrew Coy

Technologist & Change Agent

Educator, technologist, mentor and entrepreneur interested in bridging the gap between education and technology. Passionate about educational equality and dedicated to reinventing education to empower students to take their place the 21st century digital workplace. Creator of the Digital Harbor Foundation Tech Center and chair of the Greater Baltimore EdTech Advisory Task Force.

Arlando Lara

Student Engager

Arlando grew up in Toppenish, WA. He is the oldest of five children and his parents are still in the Yakima Valley. After attending Pacific Lutheran University, he took his first teaching job in the Bethel School District and then worked towards his administrative certification. Arlando was a middle school administrator in the Tacoma and Kent School Districts for nearly a decade. He moved to Wenatchee, WA. where he met his life love, Jessica and he currently teaches 8th grade students language arts and social studies. He enjoys coaching all sports, at Foothills MS he coaches volleyball, basketball and fastpitch. He also coaches several recreational league teams through Wenatchee Parks. He and Jessica are active members of the community and are constantly on the move navigating the schedules of their 4 busy children.

Bing Howell

Education Reformer

Bing Howell has focused his life on helping to prove the possible – that every child can achieve in quality educational environments. He has led key efforts in shaping transformative educational reforms across the country at both the state and local levels across Tennessee, Louisiana, and New Jersey.

Cara Hackenmiller

Mentor and empath

Cara believes the key to improving our city, state, nation falls, unfairly, on the shoulders of our youth. The question remains as to whether we are preparing them for this responsibility through traditional educational means. However, there is hope! Cara is confident implementing explicit empathy training in education at all age levels is the key to create lasting, positive change at the local and national level.

Dirk Horton

Creative Math

I was born in New York in 1944, attended the State University of New York and earned a BS in Physics and Mathematics. I fell in love with Physics and went to graduate school at Michigan State University in High Energy Physics and Astronomy. I taught High School Physics as a substitute for a friend on sabbatical leave. He returned and we teamed for 8 years until 1978. I'm a lucky man! Jakarta, Manila, Taipei, Singapore, Guatemala, and Colombia were homes from 1978-1995. I worked at International Schools in each country listed. I returned to Cincinnati and taught Physics and Math for 12 years in the urban public and private school setting. After moving to Wenatchee, I taught Adult Basic Ed at WVC and subbed across the Wenatchee School District. I began tutoring in physics and math at every level. My TedX talk focuses on my efforts to help K-8 students build confidence and success in their struggle to learn early math.

Erich Bolz

Early Childhood Education Advocate

Erich Bolz currently serves as Assistant Superintendent of Instructional Services at Pasco School District in southeastern Washington. He has served as a remedial reading teacher, pre K-12 principal, and as a central office administrator at small, large district and Educational Service District (ESD) levels. Erich also works as an adjunct professor, process facilitator, strategic planner, a systems consultant, is a published author and keynote speaker. Erich is passionate about ensuring access for all people to a quality educational experience. Of particular interest to Erich is the issue of school readiness, which as it turns out is the best predictor of a successful life. Erich lives in Tri-Cities, WA with his adorable wife Shelly, an elementary art specialist and two surprisingly delightful teenagers. When he is not working writing or speaking, Erich can be found traveling, playing tennis, cooking, and reading.

Holly Morris

Innovator & Designer

Holly Morris is a leader and champion of education innovation across the spectrum from early learning to higher education. In her work with EDUCAUSE and the Washington State Charter Schools Association, she focused on principles of user-centered design and led education leaders through design processes to create new schools, new programs, and new business models to increase student success. To this work, Holly brings ten plus years of experience in adaptive coaching and change management to build leadership capacity within organizations and ensure initiative sustainability. She holds a J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, a M.Ed. (policy) from the University of Washington, and a B.A. (political science) from Northwestern University.

Isabel Salas

Student

Isabel Salas is a Freshman at Eastern Washington University. She is the creator of Helping Our Peers End Suicide, also known as HOPES, at Liberty Bell Jr./Sr. High school in Winthrop, WA. Isabel is pursuing a major in Social Work to continue to help adolescents with Suicide Prevention and treatment.

Jonathan Baker

Industrial Designer & Entrepreneur

Jonathan Baker knows design. Over the past two decades he has designed over 50 products for the sporting goods and outdoor industry. As a freelance product designer he helped create new product categories, define market changing aesthetics and engineer disruptive technologies. He has worked with global manufacturers, with many of his designs being produced millions of times. He is the Founder of eqpd and is using this background in design and manufacturing to create a world with less waste. By making goods with universal aesthetics that are more durable, versatile and long lived, the need for disposable alternatives is reduced. A lifelong Artist, Jonathan is a board member of the Methow Arts Alliance and guest critic at his alma mater, the Rhode Island School of Design. Awarded an internship at Patagonia, he was fundamentally challenged by how to "use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis". He and his wife Margaret live in the Methow Valley.

Karla Soto Mullins

Alternative School Poster Child

Karla works currently in real estate, mortgage processing and loan origination. Yet, she continues her passion for plant medicine and natural healing. Karla is truly a success story starting with the bare survival minimums in her early years, eventually saved by a charter school, which lead to an outstanding corporate career and a successful transition to carving out her own path in the mortgage lending business. While Karla doesn’t like to talk about her success, she takes every opportunity to talk about her wonderful daughters and their successes in cheer, dance, gymnastics, and school, but more importantly of their beautiful spirit. Karla has since relocated her Mom and brother, challenged by a stroke 10 years ago, to the Wenatchee area, and still finds time through her busy schedule to attend to their everyday needs. Karla has always had a passion and desire for caring and giving back to those in need, just as she needed so many years ago.

Kirsten Cook

Boot Muddier

Kirsten Cook has a B.A. in Human Ecology from Connecticut College. With over 25 years of conservation education and program management experience, her career has spanned a range of organizations, including 2 arboretums, a zoo, habitat restoration nonprofits, and now the Okanogan Conservation District. She has published articles in Clearing Magazine and the journal Democracy in Education. Her volunteer service includes Crater Lake National Park, Washington Park Arboretum, Seattle Audubon Society, Cascade Harvest Coalition, and the Okanogan Land Trust. As the Community Outreach Director for the Okanogan Conservation District, she is responsible for education programs for youth and adults, as well as local Fire Adapted Communities efforts. She and Kathleen Ferguson, Life Sciences teacher at Okanogan HS, created the Ecology of the Okanogan class, a year-long science elective that gets students outdoors & sciencing alongside local natural resource professionals.

Lihi Rosenthal

Unconditional Educator

Lihi Rosenthal is the ED of Seneca Washington, a nonprofit that creates bridges between the education, mental health, child welfare and juvenile justice sectors to identify holistic approaches to serving vulnerable youth and families. She serves as an appointed member of the California Special Education Task Force, tackling some of the challenges in providing equitable access to educational opportunities to youth impacted by disabilities. Lihi serves on the Advisory Board for the Special Education Leadership Fellows, a nonprofit out of New Orleans and volunteers at a number of local organizations near and dear to her heart. Lihi moved to the United States at 12, after spending most of her childhood on an Israeli kibbutz. She loves her niece and nephews and her rescue dogs Mama and Charley. Hobbies include home decorating, party planning, and social activism. She likes to knit, though hardly ever finishing a project. She loves adventures, and also loves daydreaming about adventures.

Lisa Bradshaw

Survivor, Traveler, Mom

Lisa Bradshaw is a mother, 22-year cancer survivor, author, producer and founder of The DON’T WAIT Project®, a 501c3 non-profit organization committed to raising community awareness about how positive life choices can impact the health and welfare of individuals, organizations and communities. Bradshaw also hosts Life with Lisa Bradshaw, a television talk show focused on everyday people and everyday life. Bradshaw founded the Project when writing her second book, Big Shoes: A Young Widowed Mother’s Memoir, after the tragic loss of her husband at age 35. Now, 14 years later, their grown son has left for college, and Bradshaw is focused on a different story while touring the country in teardrop trailer and interviewing people about their own DON'T WAIT stories. “Hardships are opportunities for crossroads not an impasse in life,” Bradshaw says. "The Project is about true storytelling in all its heartache and triumph. And it’s what the DWP does best."

Michael Furnstein

Mike Feurstein runs the Unmake a Bully program. This program is a week long residency working with students to create a PSA about bullying. Mike has compiled a video specifically for TEDxWenatcheeED.

Michael Werner

Understander, Doer, thinker, sharer

Michael was born and raised in Switzerland. He was traditionally educated and finished a 4-year Machining Apprenticeship in the Swiss Airforce Technical School. Michael developed a program for women in non-traditional roles by organizing "Shop Girls": The first all girl team that designed, built and successfully raced a prototype diesel car in the International Shell Eco-marathon in 2009. Michael believes that successful preparation for life and learning is more than good grades and a certificate. Students who have an opportunity to engage academic content into practical terms learn to fully develop ideas, to overcome failures, to interact on teams with different thinkers, and then be accountable for their part in a process.They emerge able to tackle very hard things in a fast-paced future at the “Speed of the World”. Michael teaches Big Picture Learning at Quincy Innovation Academy. He and his wife Debbie + Labrador Retriever Heidi live in Quincy, WA - USA.

Sara Martinez

Leadership and Cultural synergy

Dr. Martinez has a passion to see individuals and teams reach their full potential. Sara speaks and writes from personal experience and over two decades of educational, nonprofit and for profit leadership. Her illustrations are laced with synergy stretching stories from her life and work across cultures and communities. Dr. Martinez has written two books, Perspectives (released Dec 2018) and Synergy, scheduled for publication in 2019. Between speaking and training engagements, Sara spends time adventuring with her husband, Joe, in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.

Stacy Luckensmeyer

Connector

Stacy is the Business & Industry Liaison at Wenatchee Valley College, though she identifies as a mother, an educator, an accidental entrepreneur, and a problem solver, the last of which she believes to be one of the most valuable skills that our children and our students can develop today. For the last 24 years, she has focused on navigating a surprising road, spanning classrooms and board rooms, startups and waitressing, medical work and community building. Occasionally, she sleeps.

Stage Kids

Often, the success of a show is determined by the number of tickets sold or the overall presentation. To us, the process is just as important (if not MORE important!) than the performance, so we focus on challenging and growing the children. After all, that's what makes a better show...theater skills are really life skills! Stage Kids launched in the Wenatchee Valley 4 1/2 years ago with 19 children at the Riverside Playhouse. Since that time, it has expanded classes, performances and summer camps to over 500 children each year. Stage Kids after-school clubs have up to 25 kids at area elementary schools. We teach theater basics, a training ground for responsibility, teamwork, and building confidence.

Sue Kane

Student Advocate and STEM Leader

Dr. Sue Kane earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Molecular Biology from the University of Colorado and a PhD in Biological Sciences and Infectious Disease from South Dakota State University. Sue is married to an incredible STEM educator, Travis, and is mom to two sons, Wyatt, 6 and Collin, 2. Dr. Kane has been teaching and mentoring undergraduate research in Wenatchee since 2011 and through the North Central Education Service District, Dr. Kane serves as the Co-Director of the Apple STEM Network, a public private partnership that supports educators and youth in North Central Washington. Her Co-Director, Jenny Rojanasthien, has called her “a champion for underserved students who pushes to find ways to meet students where they are at and help them navigate the challenges they face.” Friend, and mentor, Dr. Gene Sharratt describes Sue as “a highly respected regional and statewide STEM leader, consummate learner, visionary educator. and champion for all students.”

Ted Scanlon

guider

Ted Scanlon has a passion to teach young people about music. He is a musician, composer and music instructor. With the encouragement of his mother, When Ted was 12, he picked up the guitar for the first time. Instantly, he taught himself to play. He soon received an electric guitar from his uncle and a life-long passion was born. After years of struggling in the school system, he found a good fit at WestSide High School and graduated early with his diploma. He worked as a carpenter and built homes in the Seattle and Wenatchee areas, and then went back to school to study music. In 2010, he graduated from Wenatchee Valley College with an Associate of Fine Arts in Music with honors and a 3.9 GPA. He began teaching guitar lessons out of his home as a side job. He now runs a successful studio for people of all ages. He enjoys playing in the pit for musical theater and is consistently involved in local efforts. Ted enjoys spending time with his wife and three kids.