Dr. J. Michael Pragman is the Senior Program Director of the Kansas City Regional Professional Development Center (RPDC) through the University of MO-Kansas City. The RPDC office and training facilities are located at The Historic Union Station offering professional development to educators across the Kansas City region. His team is responsible for leader and teacher workshops working directly with the Missouri Department of Education. Michael specializes in brain research for educators building capacity for teams and has brought that passion to his professional development sessions. He has worked with Board of Educations and Administrative teams building frameworks for working with students.
Prior to the RPDC Director role, Michael was the Executive Director of Data and Accountability with the North Kansas City School District. Responsibilities included monitoring and creating assessments for a K-12 student population of 20,000. North Kansas City School District was named one of nine school districts in the United State as an innovative district for 2016 by the International Center for Leadership in Education (ICLE). The ICLE is the nation’s premier event for showcasing rapidly improved K-12 schools and districts. While in NKC, Michael and his team went out to buildings weekly during planning times to disaggregate the data for student learning.
In 2013, Michael was asked to become an educational expert with NBC Parent Tool Kit. The website officially launched October 2013. Check it out at http://parenttoolkit.com. Dr. Pragman helped create instructional strategies for parents to use at home as examples of learning standards across the nation. In 2015, he published an article for NBC promoting positive homework experiences between school and home.
Previously, Michael has been an elementary school principal for 17 years in Missouri with the Lee’s Summit R-7 School District. He helped design and opened Woodland Elementary School in 2001, a kindergarten through sixth grade center serving 659 students. Before that, he was principal of Westview Elementary in the same district. Both schools have been named top 10 schools on multiple occasions in the state of Missouri for test scores and assessments while achieving balance with instructional practices and brain development.
Prior to his administrative work in Lee’s Summit, Michael was an urban administrator with the Kansas City, MO School District serving in the magnet school program in the Science and Math Investigative forum. Michael was involved with one of the 5 original magnet schools promoting success through the sciences. During his third year with the magnet program, his staff was able to move to the third highest achieving elementary school in the district.
A former Speech-Language Pathologist, he has worked with students at the elementary, middle and high school level. He is especially proud of his association with autism and deaf education.
Michael has presented seminars locally, nationally and internationally regarding the latest brain research on teaching and learning and translating this research into practical and effective strategies for the elementary classroom. This has led him presenting at Escuela Internacional / Discovery School: Teachers Teaching Teachers (T3), in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, February 2010; The Association of American Schools of Central America; Dominican Republic, October 2009; Readership Academy, International Reading Association (IRA), National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP) and the ASCD Powerful Learning Conferences. 19 years and counting, Michael is a ‘trainer of trainers’ of brain compatible science having studied under Dr. Pat Wolfe, Napa, CA, who specializes in brain research for educators. Michael earned his B.S. in speech/language pathology, his M.S. in elementary administration and his Ed.S. in middle school administration, all from Southwest Missouri State University now known as Missouri State University. He earned his doctorate degree in superintendency from the University of Kansas.
Finally, Michael is a 20+-year adjunct professor for several universities instructing classes EdD., Ed.S. and M.S. courses in the greater Kansas City metropolitan area. He was one of the founding professors for the EdD program in 2013 at a Missouri University. His favorite courses to teach include Curriculum and Instruction, School Finance, Conflict Resolution, Team Building for Leaders, Program Evaluation, Closing the Achievement Gap in Urban Education, Advanced School Law, Program Evaluation, Qualitative Research and Quantitative Analysis. He has chaired several dissertations with two of his students being recognized as the top dissertations of the year.
