Kim Bearden is the co-founder, executive director, and language arts teacher at the highly-acclaimed Ron Clark Academy, an innovative middle school and educator training facility in Atlanta. Over the past nine years, over 36,000 educators from around the world have visited Kim’s classroom at the Academy and have attended her workshops to learn better ways to engage students, promote academic rigor, and create a climate and culture that promotes success. Kim was recently honored at the White House for being inducted into the National Teachers Hall of Fame. She was selected from over 70,000 nominations to be honored as the Disney American Teacher Awards Outstanding Middle School Humanities Teacher. The Milken Family Foundation selected her to receive the Award for Excellence in Education, and she was the chosen from among 7000 teachers as Teacher of the Year in Cobb County, Georgia. Women Works Media Group has named her one of Georgia’s Most Powerful and Influential Women. Over the past twenty-nine years, she has been a teacher, instructional lead teacher, curriculum director, school board member, staff development trainer, and middle school principal. Kim’s book, Crash Course: The Life Lessons My Students Taught Me, made several bestseller lists, the LA Times Bestseller List being among them.
