Plenary 5: Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child Framework: Challenges and Future admist COVID-19

Rosemary Reilly-Chammat, EdD, is the associate director of school health and extended learning in the Office of Student, Community and Academic Supports in the Rhode Island Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (RIDE). She has served in a variety of roles in RIDE over the past 10 years. In addition, she worked for 26 years in the Rhode Island Department of Health, leading a variety of efforts related to student health and health in schools. She is the past president of the Society of State Leaders of Health and Physical Education and is on the board of the American School Health Association (ASHA). She received an ASHA Fellow Award in 2021.

Donna Videto, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor and Professor of Health, has worked in school health education and pedagogy for over 40 years. An AAHE Fellow and a CDC HECAT trainer, she is currently employed by SUNY College at Cortland where Donna teaches graduate and undergraduate students in health education. Donna has a number of national publications including Birch & Videto’s 2015 Promoting Health and Academic Success: The Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child Approach. With over 150 national, regional and state level presentations at conferences and committee work for SOPHE, AAHE, and ASHA. Currently Donna serves as the Vice President of FAHE.

Vito J. Borrello is the first Executive Director for the National Association for Family, School, and Community Engagement (NAFSCE), appointed in September 2014. Since its founding, NAFSCE has addressed systemic issues to advance family, school, and community engagement as a strategy for child development, student achievement, and school improvement. Initiatives include Reframing the Family Engagement Conversation and the establishment of the National Alliance for Family Engagement; the 18-state State Consortium on Family Engagement in partnership with the Council for Chief State School Officers; its Family Engagement Consortium on Pre-service Educator Preparation; and 2022 planning to establish the National Center for Family Math. Prior to his current position, Mr. Borrello served as the 19-year president of Every Person Influences Children, a New York-based organization providing parenting education, and family engagement in education programs. Current National Advisory Board Member roles include Scholastic and the Center for Education Equity. Recent previous national roles include membership on the National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group; and two completed terms as both an Appointed and At-Large Board Member for National PTA, where he also served on committees for finance, legislation, resource development, strategic planning, and leadership recruitment. He is co-founder and Chairman of Emeritus for the NY State Family Engagement Coalition.

Prior to his NAFSCE appointment, Mr. Borrello was Chairman of the NY State PTA Urban Initiatives Task Force, Steering Committee member of the NY State Parenting Education Partnership, and a past appointee to NY State Education Department workgroups for Teacher Standards, Striving Readers, and Safe Schools. In his home community of Western New York, Mr. Borrello is a past Board Member for the State University of NY at Buffalo's Alberti Center for Bullying Abuse Prevention; past Chairman for the Care Management Coalition of Western New York, and past Board member for Buffalo's Read to Succeed literacy initiative. He is a graduate of the Health Foundation for Western and Central New York Fellowship program and a 1998 graduate of Leadership Buffalo. Mr. Borrello has a Bachelor's Degree in Music Education from Wittenberg University and resides in East Amherst, New York with his wife, Maria. He has two daughters, Marisa, 28 and Samantha, 26. He commutes to NAFSCE’s Alexandria, Virginia office.

Kayla Jackson is a Project Director at AASA. She joined the Children’s Program team in June 2011 to serve as the Project Director for the CDC-funded coordinated school health project, Strengthening School Administrator Support for Coordinated School Health. Prior to joining AASA, Jackson was the Vice President of Programs at the National Network for Youth where she had responsibility for all programmatic activities at NN4Y; two federal cooperative agreements; and the annual national membership conference. She has extensive background in women’s and adolescent health, particularly the health needs of women of color, youth, and youth at high risk for negative health outcomes related to reproductive health, breast cancer, mental health, and sexually transmitted infections/HIV. Jackson received her BA in English from Mount Holyoke College and an MPA from NYU.

Donna Harris-Aikens served as a member of the Education Agency Review Team for the Biden-Harris Transition and was a member of the Democratic National Convention Committee Platform Committee. She served as Senior Director for Education Policy and Practice at the National Education Association (NEA), where she advocated for students, educators, and working families to support equity and excellence in education, and to ensure working families had the right to organize and the opportunity to thrive in our global economy. Prior to joining NEA, Harris-Aikens served in leadership roles for the Service Employees International Union and Advance CTE and was an attorney in an education boutique law firm.

Dr. Kirsten Rodgers is an Educational Consultant with over fifteen years of experience teaching and developing instructional programs in public health. As Principal and Lead Consultant of Proximate Learning, LLC, she works with federal, state, and local agencies and academic institutions to develop educational programs for public health and healthcare professionals. She is a founding member of Pedagogy in Health Promotion and serves on two national boards that focus on professional development in public health. Currently, Dr. Rodgers contracts with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to prepare current employees and fellows for the public health workforce.  She also contracts with non-profits and other national agencies to develop educational products and courses that focus on leadership, health equity, public-private partnerships, and community-level change theories in public health. Dr. Rodgers’ educational credentials include a doctorate in Health Education from Columbia University, 2010 and a Masters of Science in Public Health from the University of South Carolina, Arnold School of Public Health, 2003. She has been a Master Certified Health Education Specialist (MCHES) since 2011. From 2012-2015, she served as a faculty member at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health and in 2016, led the undergraduate public health program accreditation at Georgia College and State University where she was an Assistant Professor. She enjoys creating meaningful education that inspires students and professionals to thrive.

Deborah A. Fortune, Ph.D., MCHES, is an associate professor in the Department of Health Education at North Carolina Central University and is a Master Certified Health Education Specialist. Prior to her current position, Dr. Fortune was the director of the National HIV and CSHE Project with the American Association for Health Education. She has been a faculty member at the following institutions: East Tennessee State University, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and Marymount University.

Dr. Fortune received her B.S. degree in Biology from Mississippi University for Women, her M.S. degree in Community Health Education from the University of Southern Mississippi, and her Ph.D. in Public Health Education from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Dr. Fortune has provided instructor training in comprehensive school health education (Growing Healthy curriculum and Teenage Health Teaching Modules), HIV/AIDS for African Americans, youth violence prevention, and cultural diversity in health education. Her research interests include HIV and sexual health among African American college women, youth violence prevention, professional preparation in health education, and faculty and youth mentoring. She has published and made numerous presentations on those topics.