BRING ME IN

I’ll tell them the truth.

If your audience is tired of hearing education discussed by people who left the classroom years ago, bring in someone who stayed. I haven’t spoken from a conference stage. I’ve spoken to a room of thirty adolescents every day for sixteen years, and I’ve told the truth in three books the system would rather I hadn’t written.

WHAT I BRING

The classroom, unsoftened. What the job actually does to the people who do it: toxic colleagues, leadership that manages up while the building burns, procedures that stand in for care. The story of one due-process case, and what it teaches every educator about the record being kept on them. And the through-line of all of it: how to stay standing in the room.

WHO IT’S FOR

New-teacher programs and induction. Educator associations and union locals. Schools of education. Staff development that wants candor instead of a brochure. Podcasts and interviews.

THE HONEST PART

I’m new to the speaking circuit. What I bring isn’t a polished keynote repeated a hundred times. It’s lived experience, carefully documented and honestly told.

Speaking topics

Preparation

The Reality Gap

Why teacher preparation is only the beginning and what the distance between training and the job costs new educators.
Audience leaves with: a clear-eyed picture of the preparation-to-practice gap and how to close it.
Culture

The Hidden Curriculum of School Culture

What school culture teaches without ever saying it out loud the unwritten rules educators absorb on the job.
Audience leaves with: language for the culture they're already living, and why naming it matters.
Accountability

Leadership, Silence, and Accountability

What happens when institutions fail to listen and what genuine accountability would have required instead.
Audience leaves with: a framework for recognizing institutional silence and interrupting it.
Culture / Accountability

When Procedure Replaces Conversation

How process can quietly stand in for care and what's lost for educators when it does.
Audience leaves with: the distinction between following procedure and doing right by people.