Ron Clark

Ron Clark is an American educator, author, and motivational speaker known for his innovative work with students in low-wealth communities and his leadership in school culture and transformation. He has taught in North Carolina and New York City, including at a struggling school in Harlem, and in 2000 was named Disney’s American Teacher of the Year. Clark is a New York Times bestselling author whose classes have been honored at the White House on multiple occasions, and he has been recognized by Oprah Winfrey as her “Phenomenal Man.”

Clark is the founder and a teacher/administrator at the Ron Clark Academy, an award-winning, internationally acclaimed nonprofit middle school and educator-training center in Atlanta, Georgia, co-founded with educator Kim Bearden in 2007. At the Academy, more than 145,000 educators from around the world have visited to observe its innovative practices and professional development model. His books include The Essential 55 and Be 1% Better: Surprisingly Simple Ways to Transform Your School, where he shares practical, incremental strategies—“one percenters”—to help educators, administrators, and school leaders improve school culture and student success.