Dr. Christina O'Neill
Special Services Teacher
Nixa Public Schools

Christina recently received her doctorate in Educational Leadership from Southwest Baptist University. She obtained her Bachelor's in Psychology and Child Development from College of the Ozarks. She went into the mental health field, working as a Community Support Worker for Burrell Behavioral Health. She made the switch to special education in 2009 when she took a job as a paraprofessional at Taneyville Elementary. There, she learned how much she loved working with children with social emotional and behavioral needs.

Christina went on to get her Master's in special education and teaching certification from Drury University. In 2014, she began teaching special education at Nixa Public Schools, where she currently teaches.

Christina has been the President of Chapter 164 of the Missouri Council for Exceptional Children since 2020. In 2016, she founded Edcamp SpEd Nixa, an annual unconference, which provides a unique professional development opportunity for special education teachers from all over Missouri and Arkansas.

Special education is her passion. She loves this population and has committed her career to helping those in need. She specializes in working with students with social emotional and behavioral needs. She now feels called to work with adults, share her knowledge and experiences, and lead future generations of special education teachers.

Dr. Debbie Yonke
Professional Learning Director
GOCSD

Dr. Debbie Yonke retired as the Director of Professional Learning and Instructional Support at Republic Schools. During her 30 year career in public education, she has served as a classroom teacher, instructional specialist, and curriculum director. Her professional goal is to empower and support educators so that they might equip their students for a successful future. She has been blessed to serve alongside many other amazing educators in the Republic, Willard and Springfield districts and collaborate with leaders and teachers throughout Missouri. She also has had the opportunity to collaborate with educators throughout the nation as a Cooperative Learning Trainer and also partner with non-profit organizations to train teachers in both Cambodia and Ethiopia. In her free time, Dr. Yonke enjoys spending time with her husband, Steve who is a retired educator, their 3 daughters and grandchildren.

Our GOLearn PL Framework provides an overview of the learning experiences we offer. This systems approach supports continuous improvement and allows members to identify the offerings that meet their needs, providing a personalized experience. It includes three strands: Systems Thinking, Safe and Collaborative Culture, and Highly Effective Teaching and Leading.

We use the Learning Forward Standards for Professional Learning when designing our experiences to ensure that we provide professional learning that leads to high-quality leading, teaching, and learning for students and educators.

Review our GOLearn Framework to identify sessions that meet your needs, see what sessions are currently open for registration on our PL Events webpage, and access the content in our on-demand catalog to start learning now.