Leading SEL by Modeling It

James Bailey is an experienced K-12 leader, having served as an elementary and high school principal, an assistant superintendent, superintendent, and turn-around leader in both the public and charter school spaces in Colorado, Wyoming, and Texas. He has also worked as a school improvement consultant and leadership coach opening his firm called the Leading Learners Institute in 2016 (llinst.org). Bailey started LLI to help make research more meaningful and actionable for educators through a specific focus on 1) leadership coaching 2) capacity building through design-based research and improvement science principles 3) social-emotional development of adults and students, and 4) future-oriented strategic planning [see www.llinst.org]. Throughout his professional career, Bailey has focused on the intersection of research, equity, learning, and organizational design for both adults and students. He has one self-published book called The Productive Principal and numerous blog posts and a few peer-reviewed articles (see publications section on the attached resume). He has presented multiple times at such conferences as the INACOL Conference, the Education Elements Personalized Learning Summit, the Wyoming School Boards Association Conference, the National Staff Development Council (Learning Forward)Annual Conference, and the American Educational Research Association.

Peter DeWitt (Ed.D) is the founder and CEO of the Instructional Leadership Collective, and approaches everything with a learner's mindset. He was a K-5 teacher for 11 years and a principal for 8 years. For over 12 years, he has been facilitating professional learning nationally, and internationally, based on the content of many of his best-selling educational books. 

DeWitt's professional learning relationships are a monthly hybrid approach that includes both coaching and the facilitating workshops on instructional leadership and collective efficacy. His work has been adopted at the state level, university level, and he works with numerous school districts, school boards, regional networks, ministries of education around North America, Australia, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and the U.K.

Peter writes the Finding Common Ground column for Education Week with Michael Nelson and they host Corwin’s Leaders Coaching Leaders podcast. In 2020 DeWitt co-created Education Week's A Seat At the Table where he moderates conversations with experts around the topics of race, gender, research, trauma and many other educational topics.

Peter is the author, co-author or contributor of numerous books and his articles have appeared in educational research journals at the state, national and international level. His books have been translated into numerous languages. 

There is no more noble profession than that of an educator was what Michael Nelson’s mom said almost every day while he was growing up. For almost 40 years, Michael has been an educator. His mom would be pleased.  

Even though Michael still considers “teacher” as his  primary title, he has served in roles of principal, district instructional leader, superintendent, assistant executive director developing professional development for the state of Washington, and currently as the Thought Partner for the Instructional Leadership Collective.

Michael has received many state and national awards during his time as a principal and superintendent. As principal, his school received the National Blue Ribbon Award from the United States Department of Education. As a superintendent, he was named Washington state’s 2019 Superintendent of the Year. During his tenure as superintendent, Michael was elected President of the Washington Association of School Administrators (WASA) by his peers. 

Michael Nelson co-facilitates coaching, keynotes, and workshops with Peter DeWitt. Their first book “Leading with Intention” was released in May 2024.