On Balance

In this episode of On Balance, Dr. Rod Berger sat down with journalist Matt Barnum who is a reporter for Chalkbeat, a great resource for educators. Matt has extensively covers education, and he notably reported on learning loss in his article “The state of learning loss: 7 takeaways from the latest data.”

Matt breaks down the latest statistical information on the pandemic learning gap resulting from interruptions in classroom instruction. Learn more about Matt and read more of his work here.

Dr. Rod Berger sat down with Dr. Daniel Soderholm, Principal of Culpeper High School in Culpeper County Public Schools, Virginia. They discuss the unique challenges administrators have faced over the past two years during the COVID19 pandemic.

Dr. Solderholm has always had a passion for students learning more than the content in their expressed courses. He believes the courses and programs offered to students should act in concert with each other to produce well-rounded citizens. Learn more about Dr. Soderholm and Culpeper County Public Schools. 

In this episode of On Balance, Dr. Rod Berger sat down with Christy Lamb and Karen Hile, co-founders of The Modern Principal. They discuss support and professional development for current and aspiring administrators and much more!

Christy Lamb

Christy Lamb is an elementary principal in a PreK-5th grade building with the district’s gifted program. After learning in her Sociology degree program (a highly sought-after and lucrative career path) that for-profit prisons were using 3rd grade African American boys’ reading levels to determine the number of prisons to build in the future, Christy applied to and was accepted to the Teach for America program in Houston, TX. Educational equity is the name of her game!

She has hopped back and forth between elementary and middle school serving as an ELA teacher, instructional coach, reading specialist, admin intern, assistant principal, and principal. Up until the 11th year of her career, she had never had the exact same job/classroom/building/district two years in a row. A self-proclaimed “horrible colleague” in her early years due to many moves, Christy now craves collaboration with professionals both in and out of education to help make her dream of an equitable learning environment a reality.

Karen Hile

Karen Hile is an elementary principal in a PreK-4 building with the district’s behavior program and one of the district’s life skills classrooms. Education always seemed in the cards for her as both of her parents were involved in education in various roles. She set off to college to become a teacher but the particular liberal arts program had teacher candidates get undergrad degrees in content other than education first.

Karen completed her BA and BS in Psychology and set off to get certified through completing her Masters while having her own classroom through the Kansas City Residential Internship Program. Having no experience, it could have been an utter disaster for her students and herself for that matter, but because the program assigned her a full time mentor and instructional coach, instead it ignited her fire for this profession.

Going from teacher to instructional coach, to admin intern to principal in urban, suburban and rural schools for the past 15 years would have never been possible without the incredible support, guidance and learning found in the community of dedicated educators in all schools.  Exploring how to create that network across varying communities and districts with the Modern Principal sounds like the next level in her journey as a school leader.

Dr. Rod Berger sat down to discuss talent management with Katie Ballantyne, Cornerstone's VP of Product and Customer Experience. 

Cornerstone powers the future-ready workforce. With adaptive HR software designed to unite people, teams, technology, and business, our products inspire a work environment of growth, agility, and success for all. We built our AI-powered and skills-forward system for the contemporary workforce. Organizations that use Cornerstone modernize their learning and development experience, deliver the most relevant content from anywhere, accelerate talent and career mobility, and establish skills as the universal language of growth and success. Cornerstone serves over 6,000 customers and 75 million users and is available in 180 countries and 50 languages.

Learn more about Cornerstone!

In this On Balance episode, Dr. Rod Berger sat down with Joshua Broggi, founder and CEO of Woolf. Woolf is the first global, collegiate higher education institution that lets qualified organizations join as accredited member colleges. Woolf's software platform helps organizations meet and maintain regulatory and institutional standards by handling everything from course creation to degree issuance. Collegiate universities are not new: the University of Oxford, University of California, University of London, and Delhi University are all collegiate. Woolf is the first global, collegiate higher education institution allowing membership for qualified new colleges.

Dr. Rod Berger sat down with Pedro Pereira, the first Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) of SAP Latin America and the Caribbean. As CSO, he helps business leaders in the region make a difference by understanding how they can be both profitable and sustainable while creating impact and value for their shareholders, the planet, and society at large. 

He is responsible for leading sales in Latin America of solutions including the SAP Cloud for Sustainable Enterprises portfolio, an offering that enables enterprises to identify, quantify, analyze, and act on data to manage sustainable performance. In addition, he works to advance SAP’s own goal to become a net-zero company by 2030. Pedro has extensive experience in the sustainability field. 

Before this position, he served as Director of Sustainability and Innovation for the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) South region. He joined SAP in 2014 to drive growth opportunities in big data and subsequently specialized in innovative initiatives such as smart cities, intelligent businesses, and strategies to mitigate the effects of global warming. 

Pedro has a vigorous entrepreneurial spirit. A native of Brazil, he has lived in Dubai for the past ten years, where he started managing operations of software startup Corporater in the Middle East. In addition, he is an advisory member of Repple.com and a mentor for SAP.iO and Techstars entrepreneurs and start-ups. Pedro has a degree in technology from Brazil and specializations in management, big data, strategy, and innovation from the University of La Verne and the MIT in the United States.

In this episode of On Balance, Dr. Rod Berger sat down with Kenisha Arora who studies Medical Sciences at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada. She is a UNESCO Youth Representative and spoke at the Transforming Education Pre-Summit in Paris. Kenisha also received the prestigious Princess Diana Award and was the only Canadian recipient of the Chegg Global Student Prize in 2022. Kenisha and her sister co-founded The HopeSisters, an organization with the purpose of bringing hope to senior citizens experiencing social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Rod Berger sat down with BD’s Global Medical Liaison, Nurse Practitioner Joseph Mann. As students across the United States head back to school, they discuss practical strategies parents and teachers can implement to reduce the risk of COVID infections.

Learn more about BD here!

In this episode of #OnBalance, Dr. Rod Berger sat down with Dallas ISD’s Chief Academic Officer Shannon Trejo. She has 28 years of educational experience.

They discuss Trejo’s campaign for justice for non-English-speaking children who were going to be placed in special education classes without any documented learning deficiency.

Before her current position, Trejo served as Dallas ISD assistant superintendent for Language, Literacy and Social Studies. She led six departments—Dyslexia/504, Reading Language Arts, Social Studies, Dual Language and English Learner Services, World Languages, and Multi-Tiered Systems of Support—and focused on the creation and implementation of a districtwide curriculum.

This episode is sponsored by Just Right Reader.

In this episode of On Balance, Dr. Rod Berger sits down with Roman Peskin, CEO and co-founder of ELVTR, a platform “putting proven industry leaders in a virtual classroom with eager rising stars.” Don’t miss this insightful conversation!

Learn more about ELVTR here!