Our Team
Our consultants are a team of individuals brought together from a diverse background to offer services to all schools in all areas of school transformation.
Michael Moretta
President
Michael Moretta’s extensive experience as a social worker and his in-school career provides over 30 years of expertise that position him to make a monumental impact in your school. As a social worker, he is credited with the creation and successful implementation of an innovative intervention program for at-risk teens. His career as a teacher, principal, superintendent, and director of diversity of 46 Jesuit high schools, afforded him first-hand knowledge of the challenges & opportunities faced by teachers, administrators, and students in the day-to-day operations and culture of a school setting.
Michael’s energy, enthusiasm and participatory style make him immensely popular with students, administrators and parents. His concepts on inclusion, diversity, teacher preparedness and instructional delivery will guide your school to a model of respect for self and community.
Michael’s comprehensive multicultural programs and his collaborative nature provide the perfect balance to nurture an environment of inclusion and empowerment throughout your school. His knowledge, reputation and style are well received across the country. Michael has worked with several schools over the past five years developing lesson delivery and instructional strategies that have supported a 60% increase in student scores and helped create teacher retention programs that were implemented in over 15 school districts.
Andrea Ramirez
Social-Emotional Learning Specialist
Andrea Ramirez grew up in Central Texas, attending a variety of private and public schools. After graduating from Southwest Texas State University, she began her career in education teaching high school social studies. She spent the next twenty years in the classroom honing her practice and taking the lead to develop transition programs for students that targeted individual learning gaps. The drive for improving student programs led to her leaving her classroom for a position as School Improvement Facilitator in order to improve education for the campus as a whole. It didn’t take long until this fueled a passion to prepare teachers by providing a foundation in curriculum, but more critically a foundation in instructional strategies that support social and emotional learning as well as classroom management. In her role as School Improvement Facilitator, she worked with district and campus administrators to plan and implement professional development to improve test scores, with the greater goal of preparing our students for college, career, and life. As the position evolved, this meant transforming a large campus into functioning PLCs, creating a system of targeted interventions, and embedding social and emotional skills into curriculum. It was through this experience that Andrea became dedicated to helping teachers build their toolbox of instructional strategies that create a climate of learning. With the conviction that teaching is both an art and a science, she became dedicated to empowering teachers to develop effective instruction as well as build a classroom climate focused on learning.
John Moretta, Ph.D.
Executive Consultant
Dr. Moretta received his Ph.D. in history from Rice University, specializing in 20th century US socio-cultural history. Dr. Moretta also has expertise in Mexican and Latin American history, as those regions were his subfields for his degrees. Since 1982, Dr. Moretta has been a full-time history professor with Houston Community College. In that time Dr. Moretta has been awarded not only tenure but Master Teacher status as well.
Dr. Moretta has also been a visiting professor at the University of Houston Main Campus, and also at the University of Houston, Downtown, where he presently adjuncts. While with UH Main (1986-2010), Dr. Moretta was Distinguished Visiting Professor for the Honor's College, a position he maintained until 2010, when he left UH systems for the Gulf country of Qatar to help open a community college in conjunction with HCC. Dr. Moretta spent five years in Qatar at CCQ and while there served as the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. In 2015 Dr. Moretta returned to his home college and resumed his duties as a full-time history professor and returned to UHD as an adjunct professor.
Dr. Moretta has taught a variety of history courses, ranging from African American and Mexican American history to Race and Sports in America, to the Vietnam War and the 1960s. Most important, Dr. Moretta's 36 years in higher education, at both the community college and university level, has provided him with the opportunity to gain hands-on experience and expertise in assessing what students need to succeed in the college classroom and how high school teachers can better prepare their students for the rigors of academic life at the college or university level. Dr. Moretta believes student engagement is paramount as well as the inculcation and the constant development and honing of students' critical/analytical and interpretive skills; they should be an integral component of any teacher's pedagogy, as they are paramount, not only for academic success but in better preparing students for life after college in the competitive private sector
Kaye A. Robinson, M.A.
Systems and Instructions Specialist
Kaye A. Robinson found her passion and began her career in education as a high school math and engineering career and technology teacher over a decade ago in San Antonio, Texas. Originally a chemical engineer, Ms. Robinson graduated from Tulane University with her Bachelors of Science in Chemical Engineering. She worked first as a design engineer in Houston, Texas, then later as a plant engineer at a manufacturing plant that produced liquid insecticides in Jacksonville, Florida. She also worked in the Bronx, New York for an automotive company.
In 2007, Ms. Robinson pursued her original career intentions to become an educator, utilizing her practical experience to plan engaging lessons that constructed lasting meaning, and her analytical skills to assess and re-assess instructional outcomes for her students. She earned her Master of Arts in Instructional Technology in 2010 and her Principal certification in 2015. Currently, she is completing her doctorate in Organizational Leadership with a concentration in School Leadership at the University of the Incarnate Word.
Ms. Robinson’s experience has been diverse over the course of her career in education, from teaching to coaching to school leadership experience in the public, private, and charter school settings. She specializes in data analysis and program evaluation in order to accelerate student achievement. While her love is mathematics and STEM content, she has coached teachers from all content areas to focus on rigorous, standards-based planning, on the evaluation of student outcomes, and on using data to close gaps in achievement. She credits excellent instructional coaching in her own professional development and looks forward to making an impact for students by working shoulder-to-shoulder with other impassioned educators.
Olivia Gladstone, M.Ed.
Education Specialist
Olivia Gladstone graduated Summa Cum Laude from Brandeis University with a BA in Business and Anthropology. She sees education as the single most important pathway to opportunity and freedom of choice. Olivia has taught both middle school English and math at a KIPP charter school in San Antonio, Texas. A 5th grade math Course & Content Leader, she helps other math teachers model clear instruction and analyze data. She engages students in real-world problem solving through math. Olivia recognizes the importance of reinforcing relationships among students and between student and teacher. By creating a student friendly, collaborative environment, learning is relaxed and focused.
Olivia received a Masters in Education from Johns Hopkins University in May of 2020.
Jesusita Avalos, M.Ed.
Bilingual Education Specialist
As an educator, Jesusita has established a passion for the educational teaching field. She has served a total of 30 years in education in the following roles: elementary and middle school teacher, instructional coach and bilingual instructional coach. She then embarked on her leadership journey as an principal and assistant principal where her experience as an administrator proving successful in working with students from diverse academic, at risk, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Her educational leadership vision of offering a life-enriching experience for individuals who share a passion for intellectual exploration, engagement, and growth is what she has been working on accomplishing with young adults in the past 30 years. Since retirement, Jesusita has mentored and coached aspiring administrators in numerous Universities, districts and schools. During this time she started JA Consulting (juntos aprendemos) to provide professional development with instructional models and strategies to use with populations such as bilingual education, English as a Second Language (ESL), general education classrooms and at risk students. Currently Jesusita is working on educational programing for several new educator preparation programs for Texas colleges and a Field Supervisor and PASL coach for principal candidates at Concordia University. She received her Bachelors degree in Elementary Education at the University of Texas at El Paso where she also went on to peruse her educational administrative credentials with a Master of Education.