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Barry Sommer

Lecturer, Negotiation and Conflict Resolution

Barry Sommer is a licensed Educational Psychologist, certified school psychologist, and Marriage and Family Therapist and serves as the Director of Advancement for the Lindsay Unified School District. In this position, he is charged with scaling the Lindsay performance-based, mass-customized model to educational entities poised to transform public education into a personalized, learner-centered delivery system. He is in private practice in psychology in Visalia, California. Teaching, training, consultation and facilitation for schools, businesses, and health organizations is his passion. His primary goal is to support personal, family, community, and organizational development and health.

For almost thirty years, Sommer served as the Director of Student and Family Services for the Pixley Union School District. His training and experience have brought him many opportunities to support existing and aspiring leaders, most notably through his decade long role as Director of the Collaborative Leadership Institute, now Collaborative Leadership Lindsay.

Sommer is faculty, teaching graduate courses for Columbia University and the Tulare County Office of New Teacher Leadership Development Program. At Columbia, in Negotiation and Conflict Resolutions, he teaches Intrapersonal Dynamics and Conflict. This course is a review of all the influences that shape and determine who we are. 

Education

  • M.Ed., Queens College, City University of New York
  • B.S., Cornell University 

Publications

  • You Can Choose Your Own Life (Consulting Psychologist Press, 1994)
  • Beyond Reform: Systemic Shifts Towards Personalized Learning (Marzano Research, 2017)