A native of Puerto Rico, Amarilys Heard has been a resident of Florida since 1988. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Language Education from the University of Central Florida, and a Master of Education in Instructional Technology with an emphasis in World Languages from the University of Maryland University College, now University of Maryland Global Campus. Teaching experience includes teaching English for Speakers of Other Languages, Spanish for Natives/Heritage Speakers, and Spanish as a Second Language. Currently in her thirtieth year of teaching, Amarilys has 17 years in AP Spanish Language and Culture and 6 years in AP Spanish Literature and Culture. She has been a presenter at the AP Annual Conference, ACTFL Conference, Florida Council of Independent Schools (FCIS) Conference, the Florida Foreign Language Association (FFLA) Conference, the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP), and the AATSP Florida Chapter Conference.
She is the AP Spanish Language and Culture Lead Consultant and has conducted workshops in Alabama, North Carolina, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and Minnesota in person and online. Amarilys sponsors the Florida State Spanish Competition (FSSC) team for her school (Miami Country Day School) and is the President of the FSSC organization. She is the President-elect for the Sociedad Honoraria Hispánica (SHH) or Honor Society for Spanish, and the Florida State Director of SHH. She enjoys traveling and enjoys spending time with her husband and two daughters. Her whole family loves anything and everything Disney. She is a strong advocate of teaching and learning languages in early childhood and believes that educators are life-long learners who look for opportunities to adapt, modify, or innovate their current practices for better student outcomes.
Amarilys Heard is teaching one workshop at Augsburg this summer. See our registration site with the button below.
Billie Clemens is a Nationally Board Certified Teacher and has a BA in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MAEd from Western Carolina University. Additionally, she is certified in Gifted Education and Curriculum, Instruction, and Supervision. Ms. Clemens taught APUSH for more than 25 years in a low-wealth district in the mountains of North Carolina. From 2015 until June of 2021, she served on the APUSH Test Development Committee. This committee, consisting of four high school teachers and four college professors, is responsible for creating the AP exam, rubrics, and curricular support materials. Additionally, she served for four years as the College Board liaison to the Teacher Community. Ms. Clemens has been an exam/question leader at the APUSH Reading. In this capacity, she led a team to develop the training materials for the DBQ or LEQ. The team then used those materials to train the readers to create a fair and consistent evaluation of student responses. Currently, she is a Co-Director for a K-8 charter school. She can be reached at billieclemens84@gmail.com.
Hello, my name is Dana Melone. I grew up in the Chicago area but went to college in Iowa where I received my BA in Psychology and Education as well as my Masters in Teaching and I am almost done with a Masters in Psychology. I continue to live and teach in Cedar Rapids, Iowa at Cedar Rapids Kennedy High School. In total I have 21 years of teaching experience and 16 of those years have been at Kennedy. I have taught AP Psychology every single day of my career and I truly love it.
Dan Hoppe has been teaching AP U.S. Government and Politics and AP Comparative Government since 2008. He has been a social studies teacher in Stevens Point and Green Bay (WI) for 22 years and he also teaches AP U.S. History. Dan has been a test reader and written test questions for the AP Comparative Government exam and is a College Board national consultant for both AP Government courses, presenting workshops to teachers across the nation since 2014. He has also presented workshops on the use of technology within the social studies classroom at the Wisconsin Council for the Social Studies annual conference and for education majors at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Dan was awarded the Coca-Cola Distinguished Educator Award in 2015 and was named the 2019 Wisconsin History Teacher of the Year by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. He is also an active leader within his school, serving as the student senate advisor and as a basketball and track and field coach.
Erik Ahlquist has been a high school mathematics teacher at St. Louis Park High School in St. Louis Park, MN for the past 28 years. Erik began teaching AP calculus AB and BC in 1998 and has been an AP Reader for the calculus exam since 2006. Erik has served as a reader for both the operational exams as well as the alternate and international exams. He has served as a table leader and as a question team member. Starting in 2020 Erik has served AP as a question leader for the AB form of the exam. He has enjoyed the opportunity to set the standards and train readers on the scoring guidelines of specific problems, including both secure and operational forms of the AB exam. Erik is currently in the second year of a five year contract as a member of the AP Calculus Test Development Committee. He is responsible for writing and editing both the multiple choice and free response questions that will be administered on future AP Calculus exams. Erik has been part of the AP consulting team since 2021. Erik looks forward to teaching and learning from fellow educators.
I love connecting with passionate educators from a variety of backgrounds and experiences. Learning from one another is truly the best professional development there is. Even though I am an experienced teacher, I am always learning from others, and continuing to improve my instruction.
Mr. Emmitt Glynn, III currently teaches AP African-American Studies and AP US Government and Politics in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He is a Nationally Board Certified Teacher in Social Studies –History with 30 years of teaching experience. Emmitt was one of 63 teachers nationwide selected to teach the AP African American Studies in Pilot Year 1 (2022-2023) and he was selected to be part of the first cohort of College Board endorsed AP African American Studies Workshop Consultants in 2023 to train teachers in Pilot Year 2 and beyond. Mr. Glynn was a member of the first group of high school teachers and college faculty that participated in the scoring of the first AP African American pilot exam in 2023. He is the first Online Teacher Community moderator for the AP African American Studies course.
Jeff Blair has been a teacher since 1993. He currently teaches at Grandview High School in the Cherry Creek School District, and he is also on the adjunct faculty for Community College of Aurora, instructing for concurrent enrollment courses. He has been an AP teacher (Language and Literature) for twenty-three years and has worked with the AP reading for twenty. Over that time, he has served as a reader, table leader, and, most recently, question leader for the AP English Language exam. He has worked as an AP mentor and has presented at the AP National Conference. He also works for College Board as an AP consultant. Outside of his AP work, Jeff has had work published by NCTE and presented at the NCTE national conference. However, he is most proud of his contributions in his home, spending as much time with his wife and children as their busy lives allow. You can contact Jeff directly at jeffreyjblair@gmail.com.