"It's time to halt the erosion of public trust and build trust in America's schools!"

Jamie is a former attorney and businessman. In 1988, he joined the nationally recognized Iowa Business and Education Roundtable. He was, at the time, the president of the Great Midwestern Ice Cream Company ­ proclaimed by People Magazine to make the “Best Ice Cream in America!” He became director of the Roundtable in 1990. Once a harsh critic, he is now an articulate champion of America's public schools helping school districts build professional morale and increase community support. In the last twelve years, he has given 3,500 keynote presentations and workshops. He advocates substantive reform, but insists that public education must be broadly and aggressively supported if America is to remain great.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Pennsylvania State University, and a Juris Doctor from the Catholic University of America in Washington DC.

To inquire about Jamie's availability to speak in your school or community please feel free to contact him at 641-472-1558 or jamie@jamievollmer.com. His mailing address is 1978 Cherry Tree Lane Fairfield, IA 52556.

To inquire about Jamie's availability to speak in your school or community please feel free to contact him at 641-472-1558 or jamie@jamievollmer.com. His mailing address is 1978 Cherry Tree Lane, Fairfield, IA 52556.

Jamie's Presentations

"Jamie Vollmer has a rare talent: He communicates with staff, business, and general audiences in a compelling and entertaining way; he captures the attention and provides new understanding of the challenges facing our schools. He has the wonderful ability to discuss the hard issues and yet leave his audiences with a positive, hopeful message regarding the future. His substantive content and brilliant delivery make him one of public education's premier presenters."

- Dr. Peter Ansingh, Superintendent, West Valley Schools, Yakima, Washington

Jamie Vollmer Educational Speaker

1. You cannot do this alone. (For Opening Day and Inservice Programs)

Jamie consistently receives rave reviews for this dynamic, entertaining, and provocative presentation. It is his most requested speech.

He begins by playfully ridiculing his old "uninformed and arrogant" notions regarding teachers and administrators as impediments to change. He praises his audience for their heroic efforts in difficult times. He cautions, however, that they now face a troubling paradox: Just when we most need high quality public schools, Americans are showing disturbing signs turning their backs on the system. He helps his audience realize that our schools cannot improve and thrive if they loose their most precious resource - the public trust.

Jamie dramatically speaks of the threats associated with shifting demographics, media hype, changed economic circumstances, special interest myopia, and political opportunism. He demonstrates that rising expectations and corrosive social and economic trends are placing public education at risk. His listeners begin to understand that they cannot do it alone anymore; they urgently need to win new allies. He challenges them to develop a positive relationship between their schools and their communities.

The conclusion provides a practical and encouraging vision of the future. Jamie focuses on the system's strengths and the public's latent desire to support public schools. He energizes everyone to strive to restore public trust and increase community-wide support for America's schools. He uplifts his audience and praises them as heroes.

2. Why Our Schools Need to Change (For staff and general public)

Meaningful change can only occur at the local level if it is understood and supported in faculty rooms, board rooms and living rooms. This speech brings new understanding in clear simple terms and rallies support for change.

Jamie applauds the often-heroic efforts of educators, and substantiates the steady improvement in America’s schools over the last 15 years. He warns, however, that a gap has developed between what schools provide and what children need. He exposes the "selecting and sorting" premise upon which the system was originally built. He connects improving America’s schools with our ability to compete in the global economy. He brilliantly describes the unrealistic burden caused by rising academic expectations and increasing social responsibilities heaped upon our schools.

In forty-five minutes, Jamie makes a powerful case for the need to change, and he ties this need directly to the hopes and dreams of his audience. He employs logic, statistics, and humor to help people lower their defensive shields, dispel their nostesia, and foster a realistic understanding of the challenges facing our schools. He helps people believe that their schools must change and he motivates them to constructively participate in the change process.

3. Building Community Support for America's Public Schools (Workshop - For administrators, staff and concerned community members)

Jamie's interactive workshop teaches how to successfully engage an often misinformed and increasingly disinterested public. It provides a clear understanding of the importance and mechanics of increasing community support for local schools. Workshop participants gain a sense of direction, a feeling of hope and possibility, and an increased energy for change.

This workshop is based on four assumptions:

Jamie leads his audience in an examination of the threats arising from shifting demographics, media hype, a changing economy, special interest myopia, and political opportunism. He facilitates a discussion of the dangers of an "us and them" mentality, and cautions educators against remaining preoccupied with their own agendas, no matter how legitimate, at the expense of strengthening ties with the community.

Throughout the workshop all participants will:

The workshop is designed to be fully interactive. The participants spend a significant portion of the day working in small groups. The content is modular and can be expanded from two to five hours.

4. Schools and Business: Natural Allies in the Development of Human Potential. (For business audiences.)

Jamie builds on his excellent rapport with business leaders to strengthen partnerships, turn critics into allies, and rally support for local schools. He examines the changes that have destroyed the traditional fit between education and work, and he acknowledges business' legitimate frustration with student performance and the slow pace of change.

He points to a growing understanding among educators of the need for a new kind of employee ­ one who possess more formal education, one who has a greater ability to operate independently with a broader understanding of the context within which he or she works. He explains, however, that many school leaders are struggling to close the gap between workplace needs and student quality only to discover (sometimes at the price of their jobs) that the people in their communities vigorously resist change - they aggressively cling to obsolete mental models of the "perfect school".

At the heart of this speech, Jamie makes a powerful case that business leaders need to help educators alter these mental models. He calls on them to help keep the focus on the core issue: What do people need to know and who needs to know it. He declares that businessmen and women can provide critical information regarding how people work and what students need to become successful adults. Most of all, he contends that business leaders can and must help educators realize the central objective ­ to produce significant improvements in learning for all students. He encourages these two groups of natural partners to work together to improve the quality of their schools.

5. The First Critical Competency: Explaining School-to-Work to Your Community (All parties interested in School to Work and Tech Prep)

"Parents resist any reform that sounds as though it might preclude college for their children. Vocational, workplace, and applied are all heard as warning bells."

School to Work and Tech Prep programs face the typical problems associated with implementing reform in an institutional culture soaked in traditions and convictions.

In this specialized presentation, Jamie explains that K-12 has been historically organized around two groups of students: the small group being prepared for further education, and the vast majority who would enter the world of work. The college bound were steeped in academics, the non-college bound were educated for the hand not the head.

Jamie explains that the costs of this dualism were less obvious when low skilled, high wage jobs were plentiful. He declares that School to Work leaders and their allies must explain that there are no longer clear distinctions between knowing and doing, abstract and applied. The public must learn that the rigid separation of academic and vocational is penalizing all students, even those destined for our finest universities, and it threatens to deny a significant percentage of our graduates entry into the economic mainstream.

Jamie makes it clear that School to Work is not a clever renaming of vocational education. It is an effective program for the college bound and the non-college bound - the brilliant student, the middle student, the at risk student. It is designed to create in all students a well-prepared mind both at ease with the demands of real world tasks and equipped to continue to learn.

6. A DAY WITH JAMIE IN YOUR DISTRICT

Jamie helps school districts build "good will" between themselves and their communities. His visits energize district staff, and effectively increase local levels of commitment and trust in public schools. He helps win allies in the fight to improve learning for all students.

7:00am - Start with a breakfast presentation to the board and/or administrators.

8:30am - Present your staff with motivational keynote and, if time permits, a workshop on the mechanics of building community support for your schools.

Noon - Arrange a lunch with prominent business and community leaders or book Jamie to speak at one of the bigger service clubs on the need for increased community support.

1:30pm - Squeeze in a radio, TV, or newspaper interview.

2:00pm - Invite the local Ministerial Alliance to a one-hour question and answer session on the future of America's schools.

4:00pm - Jamie gets a nap.

7:00pm - Finish the day with a highly publicized, community-wide meeting on the challenges schools face in the "knowledge age" and the need for community support2