Linda provides clients with a practical sounding board tuned to strategic action planning. Sessions with her routinely include developing answers to the vital questions that will allow leaders to know when the goal has been met. “What will success look like?” is one of the useful questions her coaching clients often hear her ask.

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   Her career before going full-time with Michael Burns Consulting in 2011 promoted practical learning for educators in northeast Indiana. Building on the successful preparation academies she developed for teachers seeking National Board Certification and to enter school leadership as principals, she considers coaching as the “most important, practical, useful” growth service educators can provide to advance the profession.

 

   In her long career as a teacher, she became interested in staff development as a district-level Gifted and Talented program coordinator and became a Field Coach for IDOE’s High Ability Unit. She has also served as a district-level grant writer and curriculum specialist.

 

   Linda is a graduate of National Staff Development Council's Academy Two (now Learning Forward) for professional developers. She wrote grants for, and received funding to plan and implement twelve of the state’s Goals 2000 programs that included Compass Learning, Socratic Seminars, and others.  Since then, she has facilitated hundreds of learning events for teachers, principals, curriculum directors, central office staff and superintendents. In 1999, she co-wrote and co-directed Indiana’s intensive Data-Driven Decision-Making series of more than 40 trainings and seminars throughout the state of Indiana with some of the nation’s most respected school-data researchers, including Victoria Bernhardt from University of California. The purpose of the program was to equip educators with the knowledge of how to use student achievement data to improve teaching and learning, an idea that is now embedded in statewide practice through Public Law 221-99.

 

   A professional accomplishment is the attainment of the P.C.C. international professional leadership coach certification. In addition, in 2010, she became a Marzano Trainer of Foundations of the Art and Science of Teaching, a program of assessment of teacher practices.

 

   In 2011, Linda has acquired a credential in youth work, the IYD, as a School Age Specialist and has written grants to fund Project-Based Learning for 770 educators in Northeast Indiana.

 

   Retiring from education to private practice in 2011 brought her emphasis on practical learning and successful leadership to support non-profits and program evaluation as well into leadership coaching for individuals. She is a founding partner of Michael Burns Consulting, LLC of Fort Wayne, which was formed in 2004 to provide a variety of services to nonprofit agencies, particularly those who offer out-of-school-time programming for youth. Linda has been one of the School Age Child Care specialists providing liaison, connection, and professional development for the Indiana Youth Pro’s Credential project sponsored by an ARRA grant.  Michael Burns Consulting has been a part of the statewide Indiana Youth Institute’s IYI Consulting corps since 2005, providing program evaluation and other services for schools and non-profits.

 

   As a member of the Design Team for the Northeast Indiana Workforce Development Partnership, Linda participated in preparations to meet the area BIG GOAL of 60 percent of the population having a market value credential or a 2- or 4-year degree by 2025.  She worked with a committee to improve K-8 education practices as a community-supported effort.