The CharacterStrong Podcast

Mona Elleithee is the Founder and School Equity Strategist of Renewed Harmony, an organization committed to reigniting professional passion and retaining educators who serve students with challenging needs. The mission of Renewed Harmony is to build more just and equitable schools by cultivating authentic leaders, strengthening adult social and emotional learning, and nurturing culturally responsive practices. An award-winning National Board Certified Teacher leader and diversity trainer, Mona is celebrated for compassionately assisting educators reflect upon and connect their own backgrounds to their current beliefs and practices without shame or judgment. Her personal and professional development sessions invite educators to lead from their best selves - a place within that is calm, curious, compassionate, connected, confident, creative, and courageous. As they unpack the invisible barriers that unconsciously impact school climate, culture, and performance, teachers and administrators working with Mona to embark on a self-leadership journey toward dismantling the discord within themselves and between each other to accelerate achievement for all. Mona taught high school students English Language Arts in AZ, IL, and SC for sixteen years before serving as a behavioral interventionist, or classroom management coach and social-emotional skills builder, for a year and a half. While serving as her school's cultural competency team leader, Mona was invited to serve on The US Department of Education's Task Force for Cultural and Global Competencies. As a former high school and collegiate student leader herself, Mona found great joy in fostering collaborative experiences for her former service learning class students and student council officers as they served their school and local communities. When she's not making harmony at work, Mona cherishes her experience singing backup for Linda Ronstadt, enjoys singing with the Sandlapper Singers, and delights in singing karaoke with her talented 10-year-old son, Omar, and theatrical 7-year-old daughter, Dina. For more info and to check out the free relationship style inventory visit: https://www.renewedharmony.com

Angelica Rodriguez | Spanish Language Arts Middle School Teacher | Highland Middle School in Bellevue, WA | Educator for Justice | Mental Health Advocate | Resource & Content Creator of Peromiss Educational Resources | Believer in Mindful & Intentional "Self-care" (not just on Sundays)

Sarah Casper is a Consent Educator and the founder of Comprehensive Consent. Her mission is to help parents and teachers develop consent skills in their kids and teens in the present, so they're prepared for their relationships in the future.With her background in psychology, mindfulness, and nine years of experience teaching social and coping skills to kids, Sarah pulls on evidence-based methods to teach kids, parents, and teachers the necessary skills for navigating body-boundaries and consent.

Dr. Randy Russell currently serves as the Freeman, WA School District Superintendent. During his nine years in Freeman, the Freeman School District has achieved a high school graduation rate exceeding 98%; developed a collaborative professional development system grades P-12; successfully completed a $35 million construction project including the renovation of Freeman High School and Elementary schools, a new K-8 multi-purpose room, a new Palouse Regional Transportation Cooperative, a remodeled Freeman Middle School, the painting of all exterior buildings, and complete renovation of all athletic facilities; passed levies, capital project levies and technology levies; and developed a broad school and community engagement processes to create, implement and complete the Freeman 2020 Strategic Plan. He is a past member of the WASA Board of Directors and is currently on the AASA Governing Board Executive Committee. In addition to serving as the WASA President, Randy has also served as the WASA Superintendent's Component Chairperson, the NorthEast Washington School Administrator's President and as the Spokane County Superintendent's President. Randy is beginning his thirty-third year as a teacher, coach, assistant principal and principal in addition to his time as a superintendent. This experience was in Washington, Idaho and Montana.

CharacterStrong Co-Founder John Norlin shares some thoughts about the current conversations on toxic positivity, he digs into 3 parts of neutral thinking, and reminds us that we all can be mindful of the negative things that we say.

Mackenzie is a 3rd year kindergarten teacher who has a passion for early childhood education. She has a Bachelor's degree in Elementary Education and a Bachelor's degree in Early Childhood Education. Teaching has always felt natural and her love for the classroom stems from her big family of teachers. When Mackenzie is not teaching, she enjoys reading and spending time with family in Lake Stevens, Washington.

Dr. Bikowsky is a Child & Adolescent Clinical Therapist and an Educational Staff Associate Certified School Counselor with a Ph.D. in Educational Counseling/Psychology. Bella has diverse experience in the education and mental health fields spanning 20 years. Over her career, Bella has gained clinical experience working in long-term residential treatment centers as well as at Seattle Children's Hospital in their inpatient psychiatric unit. Additionally, Bella has been a school counselor in the Seattle Public Schools as well as a Counselor and Behavior Specialist in the Edmonds School District. Bella is also a part of Brooks Powers Group, an Educational and Psychological Assessment team in the Seattle area as well as Sound Supports, an educational consulting company focused on building systems through a 3-tired model—Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS). Bella has extensive knowledge working with school teams and districts in helping to create systemic change using the Multi-Tiered Systems approach capitalizing on evidenced-based interventions such as Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports, Trauma-Informed and Culturally Responsive Practices, Mental Health integration into the school systems, and Function-Based Assessments and interventions.

"Coach" Victor Hicks is a computer science instructor at The Kindezi School at Old Fourth Ward in Atlanta, GA. Coach Hicks has over 20 years experience in education with the last 6 years devoted to his passion ,combining computer science and Historically Black Colleges and Universities to provide a culturally relevant 21st century learning experience for his scholars. Coach Hicks' work is featured on the Google Applied Digital Skills website and he was blessed with the opportunity to present on behalf of the Tynker Corporation at the ISTE convention in Chicago. He is a Computer Science Fundamentals facilitator with Code.org as well. In his spare time, Coach Hicks is the proud Coach of the Psi Phi Beta "HBCU Ready" Step Team! Follow Victor on Twitter here: @CoachHicks1914

As seen on Schoology Exchange, District Administration, EdSurge, iNACOL, and TechEdge magazine, Will Deyamport, III, Ed.D. is an entrepreneurial educator who specializes in assisting educators in going digital. Dr. Will, as he is better known as, is a podcaster, writer, documentary filmmaker, and District Instructional Technologist for Hattiesburg Public School District. Dr. Will is the creator and host of The Dr. Will Show where he interviews educators and entrepreneurs on leveling up. In March of 2019, EduMatch Publishing released Dr. Will's first documentary, The Edupreneur. The video explores the lives and careers of eight educators who have become educational consultants. You can find the documentary on Vimeo OnDemand as well as Amazon Prime.

We talk with Houston about his brand new book Deep Kindness, which comes out Tuesday, September 29th! He shares about why we need a different way to talk about kindness, and how going deep takes proactive work. To learn more and to order visit: https://deepkindness.com