Dr. Joseph Czarnecki is a nationally known reading educator with more than thirty years of experience. He began his educational career as a teacher of grades three through six. He then became a principal, providing leadership in schools that varied greatly in size and student composition. After completing a doctorate in Reading, he served as the K-12 supervisor of reading for one of the nation’s largest and most diverse school districts. In that position he provided professional development for thousands of teachers, reading specialists, special education teachers, and principals. He has also designed and taught graduate level courses in reading at the University of Maryland, Bowie State University, Loyola College, and Johns Hopkins University.

He has written journal articles and contributed to educational publications in reading. His “Guest Reader Program” received national attention in Jim Trelease’s Read-Aloud Handbook (1989). He has also authored extensive support materials for teachers in the areas of phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary.

He currently serves as a consultant to school systems, publishers, and state and federal agencies. His experiences have included serving as a national reading advisor for The Public Broadcasting System (PBS), designing online reading courses for national distribution, and providing technical assistance and professional development aligned with recent national grant initiatives.

His current work as a literacy consultant has enabled him to provide reading assistance in a wide variety of schools and school districts in twenty-two states. His work has included seminars, consultation, demonstration lessons, and coaching at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. He enjoys working directly with students and teachers and developing site-specific, practical, research-based instructional support and resources for both instruction and assessment.

Elaine M. Czarnecki, M. Ed., is a former elementary school teacher and school-based reading specialist. She is now an instructor at Johns Hopkins University, where she teaches graduate courses in reading and advises students in the Effective Teaching of Reading and English as a Second Language (ESL) Graduate Certificate Programs. Elaine also serves as a consultant to school systems and public libraries on a variety of literacy issues.  

As a school-based reading specialist, Elaine served a K-5 population in a large public elementary school in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. Her responsibilities included professional development, planning with teachers and staff, working with students to provide individual and small group assistance in reading, testing coordinator, purchasing materials of instruction, grouping, chairperson of the Educational Management Team, and serving on the School Improvement Team. Elaine developed a grouping / intervention plan for her school that received countywide recognition and succeeded in significantly reducing the number of below level readers in first and second grades. She also won an award from the county for a successful reading incentive plan she designed for grades K-5.

As a literacy consultant, Elaine has worked on a variety of projects. She has given workshops on phonological awareness, comprehension, and fluency development for various school systems. Elaine has developed language arts curriculum at the county and state levels and served as a consultant for the development of the Sadlier Vocabulary Series. Elaine and Gilda Martinez have provided professional development for children’s librarians across the state of Maryland in the area of emergent literacy. They have given similar workshops in the states of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

Dr. Martinez is currently a faculty member in the Department of Educational Technology and Literacy in the Graduate Reading Program at Towson University. Her work involves: researching pre-kindergarten English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) students' literacy progress in south Florida; researching the successes of college students from urban areas throughout the United States that received a scholarship through the Ron Brown Scholar Program; serving on various university, state, and national organizations; and teaching graduate reading courses, including an ESOL course she developed for teachers working on their Master's in Education-Reading who wish to attain ESOL certification. 

As a reading specialist, she has taught several graduate level reading courses at the Johns Hopkins University, Loyola College in Maryland, and Towson University.  She created and advised for the ESOL graduate programs at JHU.  She also provided technical assistance (i.e.; assistance with curriculum development, program evaluation, grant writing, coaching) and professional development to administrators, teachers, childcare providers, parents, and librarians throughout the nation.She has presented at various state, national, and international conferences on topics such as best practices in early literacy instruction, ESOL reading and writing strategies, mentoring beginning teachers, team building, and creating home-school connections.  She has also published articles in the: School Community Journal, Internet Teachers of English as a Second Language (TESL) Journal, Education Review, Reflections Journal, Children and Libraries, and co-authored the book What works? Promising Practices for Improving the School Readiness of English Language Learners.  She is fluent in Spanish, and enjoys providing workshops to parents in her native language.

Kathy Lauritzen, M. Ed., is currently an instructor of reading in the Graduate Divisions of both Johns Hopkins University and Goucher College. She is a former elementary school teacher, school-based reading specialist, and Central Office reading specialist for the public school system in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. She began her career in public education as a classroom teacher in grades 3 – 5. After 15 years in the classroom she moved into the role of reading specialist serving two elementary schools simultaneously. In the role of Central Office reading specialist she has participated in writing curriculum based on state and national standards. Kathy has developed and provided numerous staff development sessions to teachers and administrators to ensure the successful implementation of that curriculum. She has also developed milestone assessments for grades 2-5 aligned to state standards. In response to the Maryland Task Force Report, she led a team of specialists in creating a primary curriculum document focused on the systematic, explicit teaching of word identification skills, including phonemic awareness, phonics, structural analysis and high frequency vocabulary. This curriculum document features best practices, assessments, and research-based techniques that actively engage students. She has worked with teachers and specialists across the curriculum to design plans that provide intervention for struggling readers, acceleration for gifted learners, and developmentally appropriate content reading strategies to support learners in both the elementary and middle school settings. As a staff developer, Kathy has enjoyed much success in working with teachers and administrators in grades K-12 to provide on-going training to individuals, small groups, and large groups within her district. Her long-term association with the local and state International Reading Association affiliate councils has provided her with leadership experience and numerous opportunities to present to audiences outside of her own district.

Dan Schlafer, Ed. S has been a professional educator for thirty-five years. Currently serving as the Federal Programs Director for the Monroe County, Tennessee School System, he has taught every grade level from Kindergarten through twelfth grade. Dan has taught in public schools and in two private parochial schools. Also a former Director of Athletics and Head Football Coach, his special education experience includes eight years of teaching and coaching at Tennessee School for the Deaf. During his coaching career, Dan received Coach of the Year honors thirteen times. He was named the National Deaf Prep Football Coach of the Year in 1980 by THE DEAF AMERICAN MAGAZINE. His teams posted one hundred victories which included several conference and district championships, two state quarterfinalists and two national champion runner-up finishes at TSD.

Before being appointed a central office supervisor, Dan was Principal at Tellico Plains High School. Taking over a school where finances were in the red and academic scores were in the tank, he quickly led a “worst to first” reversal of fortune. In 2006, he left TPHS with a healthy fund balance plus the highest attendance and graduation rate in the county. His school made NCLB “adequate yearly progress” in every subgroup each year. The Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association named Dan their Principal of the Year for school year 2002-2003.

Dan has made presentations at conferences across the state of Tennessee on Title VI and Title IX compliance, the McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistance Act and Americans with Disabilities Act/504 compliance. He had done consulting work with local boards of education as well.

The icing on his education cake is his work as a school board member in Cumberland County. Elected to the board in 2002, he has served as Chairman and as their Tennessee Legislative Network Representative as well. Currently a member of the Tennessee School Boards Association’s Board of Directors, he is the 2009 President-Elect of that state-wide organization. He is a Level Five, Master School Board member, a member of the Tennessee Legislative Network Board of Directors, and a passionate national advocate for NCLB reform. He was named to the 2005 All Tennessee School Board and has received the National School Board Association’s Distinguished Service Award. His latest journal article appeared in the February 2009 issue of THE AMERICAN SCHOOL BOARD JOURNAL.