Carolyn CJ Jones  is a forgiveness expert and guide, multi-award-winning author, speaker, coach, and creator of the Change Your Story, Change Your Life programs. First and foremost, CJ is a leader. This she demonstrated in her professional career as a registered nurse while employed by Colorado’s Medicaid Program. At the State level, CJ created, developed, and managed a program for medically fragile children who were dependent on high-tech machinery for their lives. The program allowed them to be cared for at home with hourly nursing care, rather than living in the hospital intensive care unit. Be-cause of this program, each child’s story was changed and that drastically changed their life.

Even though proven as a leader at the State, CJ’s personal experiences are at the heart of her leadership abilities. She spent 35 adult years angry and bitter over her childhood until, in 2005, she learned to change that story when she discovered forgiveness. In cur-rent day, it has become her passion to help people discover the freedom available when they experience the peace, joy, and empowerment that occur when they are forgiving. As a forgiveness expert and guide, she uses the same skills now that she displayed in leading the children’s program, only now there is more wisdom, more passion. CJ creat-ed the YIPPEE Method to lead others through their unique issues so that they, too, can change their story and change their life.

Teachers—and the culture in which they work—have the most significant impact on student achievement. Teachers must have a deep understanding of instruction; that is, they must (1) understand the principles that govern how the human mind integrates, processes, stores and masters new skills and information, and (2) be skilled in implementing instructional strategies that capitalize on those learning principles.

It is my responsibility to put the most highly skilled teachers in front of my students; to engage teachers in continuous professional learning of effective instructional practices; and to orchestrate and invest in a collaborative adult learning environment that gets groups of teachers working together with purpose and persistence--an environment that respects the infinite intellectual capacity of teachers to identity problems and to work collaboratively to solve them.

At my current school we are in year three of a six-to-eight-year effort to completely transform teaching and learning through a combination of directed professional education, collaborative-teacher directed learning communities focused on problem solving, and the capacity building to bring it all together. Data has a place in our work, but it does not drive our efforts, it informs them. Our efforts are driven by our love for our students, our respect for our profession, and the sense of responsibility and purpose that each of us experiences as we work with our students.

After just two-and-a-half years, our results have been impressive. Some of our achievement information is illustrated below.

Unfortunately, our politicians and their education appointees do not always have an appreciation for--or understanding of--the systems and resources it takes to develop and maintain high performing schools and school systems. As a result, I have engaged in advocacy for our city's public schools

MARCO SONZINI

Born and raised in Italy, Marco is an Audio Engineer with a classical music background.

Having always been fascinated by sound, he grew up playing classical guitar at the Conservatory of Piacenza, his home town. Right before graduating from high school he was exposed to the technical side of the music world, working on some recordings with his band.

At the age of 16 he became a licensed glider pilot after winning a highschool competition published by the Italian Air Force. Two years later he obtained the skydiving license and he started volunteering for the Italian Red Cross as ambulance technician.

After graduating from University of Milan in Science and Technology of Music Communication, he moved to L.A. to attend the Los Angeles Recording School, completing with honors the Audio Recording Program, where he also became a Pro Tools 210M and 210P Certified Operator.

In his career in Los Angeles with Magelic Productions Inc. he has had the chance to collaborate with Simone Sello and work with some of the most important italian artists, such as Vasco Rossi, Eros Ramazzotti. He recorded and mixed songs for Vasco’s latest album ‘Sono Innocente’ which reached the 6 Platinum FIMI (Federazione Industria Musicale Italiana) certification. He also tracked the Club Dogo’s ‘Non Siamo Più Quelli Di MI Fist’ record which obtained the Gold FIMI Certification as well as Eros Ramazzotti’s ‘Perfetto’ currently holding the Platinum status.

He has also been part of numbers of successful international projects such as: The Lonely Island’s latest release ‘The Wack Album’ which reached number 10 on the US Billboard 200, and The Tenors ‘Lead With Your Heart’ record which went Platinum in Canada.

His experience in the studio includes recording and mixing sessions for, among others, Alejandra Guzmán, Kevin Bacon, Juan Darthés, Draco Rosa, Romina Power, Alessandra Amoroso and Disney.

Outside the studio he enjoys taking part of benefit events by non-profit organizations: he performed at the Open Floor Society event in San Diego in 2015 and he had the chance to substitute Andy Summers for the live performance of the David Lynch Foundation record release party in Hollywood with mezzosoprano Geeta Novotny.

In his spare time, with Marson Audio, he is involved in the building, assembling and customization of analog audio gear.

SIMONE SELLO

Simone Sello is an Italian born guitarist, music producer, songwriter and music journalist. He is known for his work with the San Remo Festival Orchestra, Chicanery, Billy Sheehan, Aaron Carter, Disney, Hannah Montana, Vasco Rossi, Amber Lily, and Warren Cuccurullo, both as a producer and guitarist; and as a journalist for the magazines Chitarre, Strumenti Musicali, Accordo and Ganzo. He is an owner of music production companies RedRum Productions, Session Recording and MusicDemoProducer.com, with each company oriented towards a distinct clientele. RedRum Productions is geared towards contemporary music production for artists, film and TV; Session Recording mostly caters to projects outside the Los Angeles area, and MusicDemoProducer.com aims to bring a simplified approach to professional music production to any user, over the web.

Quick facts: Simone Sello, Background information …

His musical upbringing is based on classical violin studies, as well as watching and hearing his father play guitar, but he never took a formal guitar lesson, in spite of his career as a guitar player. His influences include major classical and jazz composers and performers, (Bach, Ravel, Miles Davis, Weather Report), pop and rock acts (The Beatles, David Bowie, Pink Floyd, Metallica, Lucio Battisti), and experimental artists (Luciano Berio, Brian Eno, Terje Rypdal, Klaus Schulze).

Equally interested in performing, composing and producing music, Simone started getting hired to play guitar for recording sessions and live performances by artists in his hometown Rome when he was 17 years old, and eventually became known on a national level. While building a long list of musical collaborations, he started writing articles for magazines, thus achieving a different kind of exposure, still in the music field.

At the age of 29, he moved to Los Angeles to push his musician and journalist careers, by joining a big international scene.

JUSTIN BROWN

Justin Brown is co-founder of Ideapod, a social media platform for sharing and growing your ideas. On Ideapod, you share moments of inspiration in 1,000 characters or 40 second videos, and your ideas come to life with the help of our creative community.

Justin is a frequent speaker and writer on the topics of business, technology and global change, drawing on his entrepreneurial experience and previous doctoral research in international political economy. His writing appears in Forbes and Inc, and he has spoken publicly at TEDx and New York Ideas.

Justin believes passionately that sharing ideas has the power to change lives and indeed the world.

Debra Jo first saw a Pet Oxygen Mask at a Pet First Aid presentation given by Denise Fleck and did not know what it was.  When she realized that pet-specific masks existed and that Fire Departments didn't carry them, well she became a woman on a mission.  Her initial goal was to make sure her own dog would be safe if fire struck her community, but others wanted their dogs safe too, so Debra Jo jumped through hoops to find out the best ways to work with first responders, started her own non-profit, The Emma Zen Foundation with her 100 lbs Black Labrador/Great Dane as the name sake.  To date she has supplied thousands of Pet O2 Mask Kits to Fire Depts in California, Colorado and around the globe. 

Prior to this, Debra Jo was an instructor at the International Institute of Permanent Cosmetics, but EZF became a full time passion.  To complement her safety awareness mission, Debra Jo is now a Pet First-Aid & CPR instructor, teaching  the Sunny-dog Ink course under her own company banner. 

Cheril is a CMT-CHT-NLP and Ordained Minister. She is the developer of the Living Water frequencies. The purpose of Living Water is to help individuals shift their mind set from the flow coming off of the physical experiences, to the natural flow coming from spirit. This experiential shift begins the process of returning the unlimited creative potential to the individual.

Kelly is a developer of Connected Healing, a method of holistic healing that combines Western and Eastern practices, without the use of pharmaceuticals or invasive surgeries. She learned of the value and effectiveness through healing herself of nine different medical conditions. She facilitates wisdom, guided emotional releasing and instruction to teach others how to heal themselves as she did.