DECEMBER THROUGH JUNE · CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT
Rick Dahlgren
FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, CENTER FOR TEACHER EFFECTIVENESS · ARCHITECT OF TIME TO TEACH®
Rick built Time To Teach on one idea: teaching succeeds where punishment fails. More than 400,000 educators have trained in the system over thirty years, and schools know it by its named tools: Refocus, Teach-Tos, the four diffusers, and the authoritative middle path.
He still teaches it the way he designed it. You practice each tool in the room until it's yours, and you leave with fewer warnings to give and more minutes to teach.
Thirty years in, and the front row still laughs.
WHAT RICK TEACHES
The tools have names. You leave knowing all of them.
Refocus
The respectful consequence that ends repeated warnings. One prompt, then Refocus, the same way every time, so students know what comes next.
Teach-Tos
Behavior expectations taught like any other lesson: modeled, practiced, and checked. One hundred of them are written out in the Teach-Tos book.
The four diffusers
Short, calm responses that end a challenge without a debate, plus four early intervention strategies that catch small disruptions early.
The authoritative middle path
Between too strict and too soft. Give the choice, honor the choice, and keep the relationship while you hold the line.
DENVER · SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2027
Dr. Johnny Alvarado
TEACHER · PRINCIPAL · DISTRICT- AND COUNTY-LEVEL ADMINISTRATOR
Dr. Alvarado started teaching in Sanger Unified in 1995 and spent the next three decades in California's Central Valley schools as a teacher, principal, county office director, chief academic officer and assistant superintendent. He holds a bachelor's degree, a master's degree and a doctorate from Fresno State.
He brings the administrator's view that teachers rarely hear: what changes a whole building, and how one classroom becomes the proof.