KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Jim Warford

Jim Warford is a courageous educational leader who did not follow a traditional career path. His unique combination of educational, business and creative experience allows him to translate his vision and passion for school reform into well-executed systemic changes resulting in dramatic increases in student performance. In early 2003 he was appointed as Florida’s first-ever Chancellor for public schools.

He currently serves as Executive Director of the Florida Association of School Administrators and as a Keynote Presenter and Senior Advisor for Dr. Bill Daggett's, International Center for Leadership in Education in Albany, New York.

As Florida’s Chancellor he was responsible for Florida’s $16 Billion budget for public schools and focusing every bureau within the Department of Education on the goal of raising student achievement. As Chancellor, he created and implemented Florida’s Continuous Improvement Model used by the “Assistance Plus” program, the largest state-intervention in low-performing schools in the nation, which resulted in over 80% of these schools moving off the list of failing schools.

As Superintendent of the Marion County Public Schools, he implemented the Continuous Improvement Model district-wide. As a result, school grades went from three “F”, eight “D” and only one “A” school in 1999 to twenty “A”, 16 “B” and no “F” schools in 2003. Under his leadership the high school dropout rate was cut almost in half and Marion County had the lowest elementary class size in Florida.

Jim Warford taught applied technology courses at the high school level for 17 years and created a Computer Graphics/Television Production program that won many national and state awards. He was named Vanguard High School Teacher of the Year three times.

Jim Warford holds a Bachelor’s degree in Communication and a Master’s degree in Educational Leadership. In addition, he served for 20 years with Glenn Associates of Florida, a family-owned electrical manufactures consulting firm in operation since 1929. Throughout the 1990’s, he also served as a consultant for Florida’s Silver Springs Attraction where he was responsible for creating new rides, shows and training employees. He is married and has three children.

Phil Schlechty

Phil Schlechty comes out of a background as fundamental as an Ohio farm and as lofty as The Ohio State University. He is an exceptional speaker, thinker, writer, and leader. He has deep, abiding passions for equity, excellence, the public schools, and American democracy—reading any of his books makes this clear.

Phil is a synthesizer and connector. He has often said that he "stands on the shoulders of giants," to whom he owes a great debt—thinkers and writers in the fields of history, sociology, education, and business, primarily. His unique talent lies in the ability to draw upon such diverse sources of inspiration and to develop coherence among them around issues of kids, schools, communities, and leadership.

Phil is a skillful, entrepreneurial leader. At the Schlechty Center he has assembled an energetic group of talented professionals, challenged them to develop their unique talents in building the organization and serving its customers, and then supported them aggressively in their work.

Phil is a storyteller, and his stories (often quite funny) are usually metaphorical, linked to some important point about why, and how, schools might be transformed. He bridges disciplines, cultures, and points of view—comfortably and with keen insight. He teaches us all how to do that. He leads by example, and by asking "what if…?" questions.

Phil is up and writing every morning around 4:30, same time as when he got up to milk the cows before school—that's when and how he thinks best.