Consultants
Kent Johnson, Ph.D., M.S.
Elizabeth Street, Ed.D.
Abigail B. Calkin, Ph.D.
William Helsel, Ed.D., BCBA
Kris Melroe
Deb Brown, BCBA
Elizabeth Haughton
Jenni Reilly
Erin Michell
Hollind Kevo
Dr. Kent Johnson founded Morningside Academy, in Seattle, Washington, in 1980, and currently serves as its Executive Director. Morningside is a laboratory school for elementary and middle school children and youth. Morningside investigates effective curriculum materials and teaching methods, and has provided training and consulting in instruction to over 90 schools and agencies throughout the USA and Canada since 1991.
Dr. Johnson has served in all the positions at Morningside, including classroom teacher for 10 years, financial manager, administrator, teacher trainer, school psychologist and school consultant. He has published several seminal papers about research-based curriculum and teaching methods. Most recently he published a book, "The Morningside Model of Generative Instruction: What It Means to Leave No Child Behind," with Dr. Elizabeth Street (2004, Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies). The Morningside Model focuses upon foundation skills in reading, writing, mathematics, thinking, reasoning, problem solving, studying core content, and project-based learning. Over 18,000 students and over a thousand teachers have used the Morningside Model of Generative Instruction. Dr. Johnson is also a co-founder of Headsprout, Inc., a Seattle-based company funded by investors to develop web-based, interactive, cartoon-driven instructional programs. The first product is currently available: Headsprout Early Reading, from headsprout.com.
Prior to founding Morningside, Dr. Johnson was professor at Central Washington University, director of staff training at the Fernald School in Massachusetts, and instructional designer at Northeastern University in Boston. He received his M.S. (1974) and Ph.D. (1977) in psychology at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst under the mentorship of Drs. Beth Sulzer-Azaroff, Ellen Reese, and John Donahue. He received his B.S. in psychology and sociology from Georgetown University (1973), under the mentorship of Dr. J Gilmour Sherman. He also counts Drs. Fred Keller, Charles Ferster, B. F. Skinner, Susan Markle, John Dewey, Robert Gagne, Siegfried Engelmann, Ogden Lindsey, Israel Goldiamond, Arthur Whimbey, and colleague Joe Layng as major influences on his work.
Dr. Johnson enjoys reading philosophy, mysteries, ancient history, psychology, and books about teaching and children. He also enjoys rock, electronic downbeat and ambient music; and talking about politics and public policy.
His recent publications include:
Johnson, K., & Street, E. M. (2004). The Morningside Model of Generative Instruction: An integration of research-based practices. In D. J. Moran & R. Malott (Eds.). Empirically Supported Educational Methods. St. Louis, MO: Elsevier Science/Academic Press.
Johnson, K., & Street, E. M. (2004). The Morningside Model of Generative Instruction: What it means to leave no child behind. Concord, MA: Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies. Available at www.behavior.org.
Elizabeth (Libby) Street is a PSIP consultant. She also is the special assistant to the president and a professor of psychology at Central Washington University in nearby Ellensburg, WA. She received her bachelor's degree (1968) in math education at West Virginia University. She later completed an MA (1969) and an Ed.D. (1977) in educational psychology at West Virginia University, where she studied with Dr. Julie Vargas. Dr. Street moved to Illinois to work in Dr. Sidney Bijou's Child Behavior Laboratory at the University of Illinois in 1971 and later became director of HEED School in Champaign, Illinois. HEED school was the first private day treatment program for emotionally disturbed children in the state of Illinois. Libby also served as the director of the adolescent unit of Adolph Meyer Mental Health Center before taking a faculty position in the Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin - LaCrosse. In Lacrosse, Libby prepared special education teachers and school psychologists and served as a consultant to a variety of schools and agencies serving special needs populations.
In 1978, Libby moved to Ellensburg, Washington where she served briefly as the director of the children and family unit at the Comprehensive Mental Health Center of Central Washington. In 1979, she accepted a faculty position at Central Washington University. In her role as professor of psychology, she prepares undergraduate and graduate psychology majors and teaches courses in educational psychology for teaching candidates. She continues to serve as a consultant and trainer for schools and agencies. Although she continues to teach classes, she now serves as special assistant to the university's president.
Dr. Street was an American Psychological Association - AAAS congressional science fellow during the 1994-95 academic year. During that year, she served on the education staff of Senator Edward Kennedy, Libby has had a 20-year association with Morningside Academy, serving as a member of the board of directors, as a consultant and trainer, and as a co-coordinator for the Morningside Summer School Institute.
Abigail Calkin began her work with exceptional children in 1959 at Wallace Center in Colorado. In 1965, she started the first learning disabilities classroom in the state of Oregon, in Eugene. Since then, she has also worked in other parts of Oregon, as well as Washington, Kansas, and Alaska. She has continuously used Precision Teaching's Standard Celeration Chart since 1967. She received her M.A. in Special Education under Barbara Bateman and her Ph.D. under Odgen Lindsley, the founder of Precision Teaching. Abigail's specialty is inner behavior--the counting and charting of thoughts, feelings, and urges.
Additionally, she has been a college professor, school psychologist,and public school principal. Her chart-based learning center, formerly in Kansas, is now in Alaska. Her numerous articles and presentations focus on Precision Teaching and the Standard Celeration Chart. She was on the editorial board of the Journal of Precision Teaching & Celeration for 19 years, and is a member of the Standard Celeration Society and of the Association of Behavior Analysis.*
Abigail is a past president of the Standard Celeration Society. Living in southeast bush Alaska with her husband, she focuses on writing and is finishing a book on inner behavior. She is the great-granddaughter of Canadian educator, historian, and author, John B. Calkin.* She has had two books in special education, two novels, and over 30 poems published.
Dr. Bill Helsel, developed the AGILE (Academic Generative Instruction for Learner Enhancement) Learning Program at the PLEA agency in 2003, and currently works as its Behavior Technology Consultant and Psychologist.
He received his M.S. Ed. (1983) and Ed.D. (1985) in Educational Psychology from Northern Illinois University. He earned his B.S. (1981) in Psychology and Economics from the University of Pittsburgh. Following post-doctoral training at the Biological Sciences Research Center, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill School of Medicine, Dr. Helsel has served as a psychologist for children with multiple disabilities in a university medical center; for developmentally disabled people of all ages in a residential center; for developmentally disabled people with psychiatric/behavior disorders through a private community providers; and for persons with Alzheimer's Type Dementia in a nursing home. He has served administratively as Director of the Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Development in a large residential setting. He has been both adjunct and faculty in university systems.
Dr. Helsel has spent three summers studying and working at Morningside Academy in Seattle, Washington since 2001 to come to a better understanding of the Morningside Model of Generative Instruction.
He enjoys sauntering through the Pennsylvania forests when not reading fiction and non-fiction works in amongst his ongoing academic readings in psychology and education. Dr. Helsel also rides mountain bike and canoes and is a fan of the "old standards" in music, especially sung by Frank Sinatra.
He has published in the areas of behavior assessment, treatment, and organizational management. He has been an officer, including President, of the North Carolina Association for Behavior Analysis (NCABA), of the Pennsylvania Association for Behavior Analysis (PennABA), where he was also a co-founder of the affiliate chapter, and currently of the Standard Celeration Society.
Recent Publications include:
Johnson, Kris. & Helsel, W. J. (2010, 6th Ed). Developing alternatives to self-stimulatory and self-injurious behavior. In M. M. Kerr and C. M. Nelson (Eds.). Strategies for managing behavior problems in the Classroom (6th Ed., Chapter 10, pp. 294-325). Columbus, OH: Merrill Prentice Hall.
Helsel, W. J., Baker, B. R., & Nyberg III, E. H. (2009, November) A linguistics analysis of autoclitic behavior. Paper presentation at the ASHA Annual Convention, New Orleans, LA.
Ivancic, M. T., & Helsel, W. J. (1998). Organizational behavior management in large residential organizations: Moving from institutional to client-centered care. Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 18, 61-82.
Kris Melroe earned a BA from Luther College in 1971. After graduating, she worked in the Minneapolis area on numerous community based projects including founding a clinic that specialized in women's health. She also did research for a NGO (non-governmental United Nations organization) health project, examining sterilization and birth control practices on four Indian reservations. Her findings were used in planning the United Nations "Decade of the Woman" and resulted in her receiving the 1983 National Recognition Award from the group Women of All Red Nations..
In 1976 Kris left the Midwest and moved to Seattle, where she worked in various capacities with different social service groups, including serving as co-director for the Lesbian Resource Center.
Kris has always been drawn to working with children Being drawn to the field of education, Kris received her teaching certificate and later her Special Education endorsement from the University of Washington. Kris joined Morningside in 1980, where she remained for five years as an elementary teacher. Here she honed her skills in instruction and precision teaching. After taking some time off to have two children, Kris returned to teaching where she worked for the Renton School District as a Special Education teacher for eight years. While in Renton, Kris designed and implemented a precision teaching training program for new special education teachers. She was also a member of the Renton Education Association's negotiating team. Kris has served as a faculty member at Pacific Oaks College, teaching a graduate class in Special Education.
Kris returned to Morningside in 1999 to work with the Morningside Teachers' Academy. She is currently the administrative supervisor for MTA.
Deb earned her MS degree in Psychology with an emphasis in Behavior Analysis from CSU Stanislaus. She earned a BS in Speech and Language Pathology and Audiology at UCSB in 1985. She currently works as an Education Specialist for Stanislaus County Office of Education where she consults classrooms and trains regular and special education staff and teachers.
Deb started working with special needs students in 1984 at the UC Santa Barbara Autism Clinic under the supervision of Dr. Robert Koegel. She then worked for several non-public agencies and schools that used Behavior Analysis to serve children and adults with autism, speech disorders, severe behavior problems and other developmental delays. These agencies included Zonta Childrenis Center under the supervision of Dr. Mary Ann Powers; S.T.A.R.S. School in collaboration with Dr. Mark Sunberg and Therapeutic Pathways under the direction of Dr. Jane Howard.
Deb has extensively studied and worked with Curriculum Development, Direct Instruction and Fluency. She worked as a teacher trainer, and later as the coordinator, at the CSU Stanislaus Center for Direct Instruction under the direction of Dr. Cathy Watkins. She directed a summer program for at-risk students for 5 consecutive years. She attended the Morningside Summer Institute in 1995. She has been an active member of the Association for Behavior Analysis and the California Association for Behavior Analysis for over 15 years. She has both attended and presented at professional conferences and has published in The Journal of Verbal Behavior.
Deb is committed to research-based practices in education. Her goal is for every student to be an active learner. She particularly enjoys training teachers and instructional staff to use the tools that are necessary for their students to be successful. Her other interests include teaching her preschool-aged daughter to read!
Elizabeth Haughton has, for over 30 years, devoted her professional life to providing children and adults with programs that guarantee learning success. Combining teaching with science Elizabeth works with students who need development of their visual, auditory, language and motor processing systems. She has operationalized and honed the ground breaking work of Eric Haughton, which demonstrated that learning rates accelerate once a student obtains a certain optimum level of fluency in the basic component skills of reading, math, and other academic areas.
In Elizabeth's work student fluency levels are measured after which instructional procedures and learning materials are designed and applied to increase skills to required levels. Precision Teaching, a unique and highly effective measurement system, is used to quantify fluency levels and then employed to monitor and predict student progress allowing teachers to offer highly individualized courses of instruction at optimum rates of learning. Attainment of fluency in foundation skills leads to the improved retention, greater endurance, and ease of application to new unpracticed materials.
Elizabeth has trained numerous educators and parents on how to identify a child's strengths and needs, determine how best a child's performance can match his/her potential, and then implement and measure highly efficient learning programs. She has repeatedly demonstrated, that with consistent, dedicated instruction, ongoing measurement, well designed practice materials and the student's involvement in decision making, learning success is possible for anyone.
In addition to fifteen years of teaching students in public schools, both in the United States and Canada, Elizabeth has been for the past fifteen years director and a learning specialist at the Haughton Learning Center. She has also been an educational consultant to schools and agencies, a professional teacher trainer, and is the author of several Precision Teaching and fluency-building instructional programs, including Phonological Coding, Rapid Automatic Naming, Mathematics Tool Skills, and Handwriting. Having consulted with Morningside Academy for over ten years she is also currently consults with schools in California, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire.
Jenni Reilly learned of Morningside Academy while attending Eastern Washington University, where she received her Masters in Education in Special Education with an emphasis on Applied Behavior Analysis and Direct Instruction. She earned her Bachelors Degrees in both Psychology and Elementary Education. She started her teaching career with Morningside Academy during the 99-00 school year. She embraces the Morningside Model and continues to be amazed by the personal and academic growth by the students each year. Jenni is both a teacher and teacher trainer at Morningside Academy. In her spare time she enjoys gardening, sailing, swimming, and spending time with her husband, Jason, son, Nicholas, and golden retriever, Elmo.
Erin Mitchell earned a B.S. in Elementary Education from the University of New England in Maine. Her teaching experience began on the Navajo Indian Reservation in New Mexico where she taught 1st grade for a number of years. She then moved to Southeastern Utah, where she taught 7th & 8th grade. Erin learned and implemented the Morningside Model Generative Instruction at Morningside Academy for eight years. She enjoyed her time working with a variety of students from elementary age through middle school. Her responsibilities at Morningside included being a classroom teacher and additionally train and coach incoming teachers, principals, and other school support personnel during Morningside's Summer School Institute. She has traveled as a consultant on a math project, which was a joint venture with the University of New Orleans and public schools in the New Orleans area. Currently, she is involved in two MTA projects where she coaches and trains teachers in Hawaii & South Dakota on how to effectively implement the Morningside model. Erin currently resides in Portland, Oregon where she has been hired to privately home-school two children. Erin spent all of her childhood in New Hampshire and thus is an avid Red Sox, Celtics and Patriots fan. When not teaching or consulting, she loves to camp, hike, visit the ocean, cook, and learn to sail. She enjoys doing these activities with her husband Patrick and their dog Lola.
Starting as one of the original teachers at Morningside, Hollind has over 15 years experience with the school in many roles. She has taught at the elementary and middle school level, developed specialized curriculum, managed staff and teacher development, and directed the implementation of the "Morningside Model" in schools in Atlanta, Chicago, Seattle, and British Columbia schools. A Seattle native, Hollind graduated from Gonzaga University with a BA in Elementary Education and an endorsement in Special Education. She has focused her 20 year career in teaching on developing and implementing effective methods of instruction for students with special needs, including learning disabilities, autism, attention deficit disorders and intellectual giftedness. She is especially known for her ability to assess individual learning styles and develop and implement targeted learning programs that effectively meet the needs of each child. She has an unusual capacity to work collaboratively with parents, teachers, specialists and administrators that builds trust and facilitates more effective outcomes for the student. Hollind now lives on Bainbridge Island with her husband and daughter, where she enjoys walking in all kinds of weather, thrift store shopping, volunteering in her community and traveling with her family.
