Lisa Dunnigan — Veteran Educator and Co-Founder of Teach Your Heart Out
Description
Elisa began her educational career over thirty years ago. She started out teaching seventh grade and quickly realized that she wanted to work with younger children. After three years of middle school, her family moved to Gainesville, GA, and she started teaching fourth grade. This was heaven for her. She also worked part-time at Laurelwood Mental Health issue with middle school-aged children as a Mental Health Technician.
After four years of living in Gainesville, her family moved back to Douglasville, GA, where she became an elementary school counselor. She worked as a school counselor for three years and then became the assistant principal at Eastside Elementary School. After three years, she was named the principal of Eastside Elementary School where she was labeled as a turnaround school principal. The school won several academic awards under her leadership. The school was a Title I School but outscored many Non-Title I Schools in the school district.
In 2012, Elisa was named the Executive Director of Federal Programs. Elisa also taught education preservice and master level classes at Mercer University, West GA University, and Kennesaw State University from 2012-2018. In 2020, she retired from the Douglas County School System.
In 2017, she and her twin daughters started The Wright Stuff Chics, an ecommerce company that created graphic t-shirts and gifts for educators. In 2018, they also started hosting professional development conferences all over the United States. The company is called Teach Your Heart Out.
In 2019, they started hosting an annual teacher cruise where they also visit a local school in one of the ports. The companies have made well over eleven million dollars since starting.
In 2015, one of the twins, Elise, was diagnosed with stage IV metastatic breast cancer. She passed away in 2018. Tosha, Elisa’s other daughter, is now an elementary principal in the Douglas County School System.
In 2017, the family started a non-profit, The Pink Santa Hat Movement, where they send out care packages to educators, nurses, firefighters, police officers, and EMTs who are battling breast cancer.
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Sam Demma is a best-selling author and one of the most in-demand keynote speakers
in the Education and Association sectors. He co-founded the volunteer organization
PickWaste, delivered two TEDx talks, and—as a result of his exceptional contributions to
Canada—was awarded the prestigious Queens Platinum Jubilee Award.
His work is often featured on national news shows like Marilyn Dennis, Breakfast
Television, and most notably, his mom’s Facebook profile. Sam delivers hundreds of
programs across North America annually, and his entertaining presentations address the
topics of Mental Health, Leadership and Kindness. www.samdemma.com
Want to join the High Performing Educator Network:
www.highperformingeducator.com