Featured ART Speaker:

Carol Salva is an award-winning educator with proven success working with unschooled/under-schooled, multilingual learners classified as SLIFE (Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education) or ELD (English Language Development) students. She is a key Seidlitz Education consultant for training, coaching, modeling, and supporting program leaders. Dr. Carol Salva is a co-author of Boosting Achievement: Reaching Students with Interrupted Our Minimal Education and a co-author of DIY PD: A Guide to Self-Directed Learning for Educators of Multilingual Learners. She has taught elementary, middle and high school. 

Carol holds a doctorate in education in the area of ethical leadership from the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. She also has her Masters degree in Education Administration. Along with her ESL certification, she is a Certified Gomez & Gomez Dual Language Trainer and a Certified Abydos Writing Trainer. Dr. Salva is a Kahoot Ambassador and the co-chair of the NAELPA professional learning committee.

She lives with her husband and three children in Houston, Texas.

Featured Science Speaker:

Rhonda Leon, M.S. is a native Texan and has a passion for education, supporting teachers, and chocolate. Over the past 32 years, Rhonda’s educational adventures have taken her to Ecuador, Guatemala, Russia, Mexico, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic. She has taught 2-year-olds through adult education, bilingual education, special ed, dyslexia identification and intervention, and before coming to TEA, was the secondary principal at an international school in Ecuador. Rhonda currently serves as the CLSD (Comprehensive State Development) Grant Manager for The Texas Education Agency. When she’s not working, Rhonda spends her free time playing with her granddaughter, and the trumpet in local community bands.