Harvey Perkins has spent 32 years in public education as a teacher, assistant principal, principal, and assistant superintendent for instruction. He has led school-based and district wide reform in both suburban and urban school districts. For over 15 years he has taught educational administration courses at The George Washington University, specializing in the areas of curriculum development and leadership training. Dr. Perkins has been consulting and training in the area of school improvement both in the state of Virginia and nationally for 20 years. He is a certified curriculum auditor through Phi Delta Kappa’s Curriculum Audit Center, a certified trainer in the Southern Region Education Board’s (SREB) Leadership Initiative modules on “Creating a High Performance Learning Culture” and “Using Data to Lead Change”, and a certified assessor and mentor/coach trainer by the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) in its “Developing the 21st Century Principal” program. His primary focus for training centers on increasing the capacity of school leaders to build distributed leadership networks in their buildings and in their districts to increase student achievement in the era of high stakes testing and No Child Left Behind.

John W. Hodge has served as a reading teacher, English teacher, AVID teacher, Assistant Principal and Associate Director of AVID Center Eastern Division. He served as Director of An Achievable Dream Academy, an inner city school where many of the interventions used by The Urban Learning and Leadership Center were piloted. An Achievable Dream Academy is a high performing, high poverty school that has received numerous national awards. Today, he shares his wealth of knowledge as the Director of ULLC™. Prior to starting his career in education, Mr. Hodge distinguished himself in the service of our country with the 7th Infantry Division of the United States Army. He is known as a master teacher and staff developer. His career has been defined by helping students and teachers overcome obstacles and achieve goals. Mr. Hodge has served as a motivational speaker across the United States and has been a guest lecturer at Christopher Newport University, Hampton University, North Carolina A&T State University and George Washington University. Mr. Hodge is currently a doctoral candidate at Virginia Tech. He is a trained facilitator for the (SREB) Leadership Initiative Modules “Leading Assessment and Instruction” and “Creating a High Performance Learning Culture”, and a trained assessor and mentor/coach facilitator and trainer in the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) “Developing the 21st Century Principal” program. His presentations often serve as “the spark” for many schools in their quest to meet state and federal accreditation standards. He is also a frequent speaker for elementary, middle and high school student assemblies.

Thelma Spencer has served as a teacher, counselor, director of academic support services, director of the AVID center eastern division and as a chief operating officer for a non-profit organization. The primary focus of her 33 years of experience has been in working with and training counselors, teachers, and administrators who work with populations of children who may struggle in the traditional school setting. She has completed the Ruby Payne training of trainers workshop for working with children of poverty and the Steve and Sybil Wolin training on resiliency. Dr. Spencer has co-authored a series of four publications under the title Building Trust, Making Friends: Group Activity Manuals for High-Risk Students, used by thousands of teachers and counselors across the nation. She has served as adjunct faculty for The University of Virginia, Old Dominion University, and Christopher Newport University and as a consultant and trainer for Virginia Commonwealth University – Training Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention. In addition, Dr. Spencer is a trained facilitator for the SREB Leadership Initiative Modules “Mapping, Prioritizing, and Monitoring the Curriculum,” and “Creating a High Performance Learning Culture.” She has also completed the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) training to be an assessor and to provide mentor/coach training under their “Developing the 21st Century Principal” initiative.