Nancy is a retired Assistant Superintendent in charge of Communications, Strategic Planning, and Community Relations for Broward County, FL, Schools, the sixth largest school district in the United States.  She held many school-based and district office positions including Executive Director of Strategic Planning, Director of Multicultural Education, Supervisor of Language Arts and ESOL, Director of the Educational Planning Center.  Her school-based experience was at the middle and high school levels.  In addition to her regular job, she has been an adjunct professor teaching classes at the Master’s and Doctoral levels in leadership, communications and English at Nova Southeastern University.

Nancy is an award winning strategic planner and has an extensive training and public speaking background.  Her ability to use humor and great story-telling techniques has endeared her to a wide-range of audiences.  She has presented at major conferences on topics that range from embracing cultural diversity, managing change, strategic planning for districts and nonprofit organizations, quality improvement, high school reform and teamwork.

Nancy’s repertoire includes numerous motivational and humorous keynote speeches that are designed to inspire and revitalize faculty, staff and leadership. She also presents interactive workshops that can be modified from half-day to three days and is available for follow up visits to assist in implementation if desired.

She is a master facilitator and has the proven ability to lead diverse groups through strategic planning from start to finish; process improvement; reorganizing to better meet the needs of your key customers; and developing teams that really work.

In addition to district and school staff, she has experience working with school boards, nonprofit organizations and institutions of higher education in the areas of strategic planning and quality improvement.

Dr. Terrel is known for her keen sense of humor and ability to get disparate groups working together to problem solve.  She also has a strong background in school improvement planning, and she help you discover how to tie district, departmental and school planning together under a common vision.

Topics include:

 Public Education in the 21st Century:  Vision or Hallucination?

This keynote (50-60 minutes) focuses on the challenges of public education with a clear message of hope and belief that together we can be successful if we have a clear vision, a common focus and use data to make the proper decisions.

You Are a Hero to Someone

This keynote celebrates educators and their roles in the lives of students.  This a great way to start the school year or energize faculty when they need it the most.  I will share both funny and poignant examples from my own experience and those of others who are truly a hero to someone every year—sometimes every day! 

If It Ain’t Broken, Don’t Fix it, Right?  Wrong!!!

This keynote can be expanded from one to three hours.  The focus is on how to lead change by first changing yourself and then changing others.  The expanded version is highly interactive and provides immediate strategies to take back and use today.  Strategies include process mapping and how to use data to start and sustain change.

Don’t Kill the Messenger!

This three hour to one day workshop is geared to bridge the gap between Central Office Staff and School-based personnel. I will provide strategies to get out of vicious cycle of blaming, resentment and mixed messages with practical tips on how central office staff and schools staff can reduce silos, avoid redundant paperwork and quit working at cross- purposes.

Celebrating Diversity without Gaining 20 pounds!

With our rapidly changing school age population, it is critical to learn strategies to make administrators, the front office and the classrooms better equipped to provide a welcoming atmosphere and a learning environment in which multiculturalism is seen as a plus—not an inconvenience.  This topic can be a keynote speech or expanded to a half to two day workshop

 School Improvement Planning for Smarties

This one to two day session includes hand-on activities and strategies for quality school improvement plans beginning with setting the vision, developing a mission statement, writing meaningful goals and SMART objectives, and determining how to measure success.  Also can include work on analyzing key functions, process mapping and developing benchmarks.

School Boards:  Above the Line or Sinking Fast

Based on quality improvement principles, this session can be half a day to two days.  It is designed to help school board members understand what their role is and what it is not.  Activities are designed to improve the members’ interaction with one another, the superintendent, and staff.  They will learn how to disagree without being disagreeable and how to set policy based on strategic planning and a vision of excellence. The session can be personalized to meet the specific needs of your school board and district.

Strategic Plan—Gathering Dust or Gathering Steam

This can either be a one to two day training on how to develop and implement a strategic plan. Or it can be designed as consultation days in which I will facilitate as your organization develops a new strategic plan.  The strategies are designed to make sure your plan is based on a shared vision and will take you from vision to action steps.  Benchmarking and reporting to the community are also part of the session. 

Leading Change—Shake it Up, Shake Down and Shape Up

A keynote speech to motivate change or a half day to two day session on leading change.  Segments include setting the environment for change, knowing yourself and others to effect change, using data to authenticate change and getting people on board.  Activities are designed to help leaders understand how they feel about change, how to address concerns about change in others and how to articulate what the innovation (change) will look like when implemented.