Michael Bennett is an educator, advocate, lifelong New York resident, and school shooting survivor. In his current capacity, Bennett is the superintendent of schools at Greenville Central School District, a rural district of 1,100 students roughly 30 miles south of Albany. Throughout his 26-year career in education, he has served as a special education teacher, high school assistant principal, middle school principal, and, most recently, an assistant superintendent. His passion for school safety stems from his experiences in the classroom.

In February 2004, Bennett was shot by a student during a school shooting at Columbia High School in East Greenbush, New York. The days, weeks, months, and years that followed the incident were filled with highs and lows. Recovery is an ongoing process; part of that process is gaining the strength to help others.

In 2019, Bennett was asked to join a group of current and former school leaders to found the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) Principal Recovery Network (PRN)—a national network of leaders who have experienced gun violence tragedies in their school buildings. Over the next few years, the group collaborated to create a step-by-step recovery guide. Originally intended as a resource to aid recovery from a school shooting, the “PRN Guide to Recovery” can help leaders lead through any major event. In August 2022, Bennett was part of a five-person panel to announce and discuss the guide’s release. The ceremony was held at the Columbine Memorial in Littleton, Colorado. Twenty years after his own experience, Bennett continues to help other professionals understand the effects of school shootings on individuals, schools, and communities. In addition, he remains an advocate for schools and communities to receive increased mental health and school safety support.

Michelle Kefford has devoted the past 25 years to serving students in Florida. She initiated her career as a biology teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas (MSD) High School in 1999 and went on to serve as an assistant principal at two different Florida high schools until she was promoted to serve as the principal of Charles W. Flanagan High School (FHS) in 2011, where she led the school to its first ever grade of “A” and earned multiple recognitions, including Broward County Principal of the Year, Florida Principal of the Year, National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) State Principal of the Year, a finalist for NASSP National Principal of the Year, Florida Association of Student Councils Principal of the Year, Florida School Counselor Association School-Based Administrator of the Year, to name a few. After leading FHS for eight years, she was asked to return home to MSD as the principal, where she currently serves, to lead the school in its healing subsequent to a horrific school shooting that occurred there.

Michael Sedlak started his educational career as a middle school reading teacher in Bedford, Ohio, before moving to the Clark County School District in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he taught English and worked with the Curriculum and Development Department. Sedlak returned to Ohio to begin his career as an administrator, taking the position of assistant principal of Chardon High School (Chardon Local Schools, Chardon, Ohio), a post he held for three years. During that time, a student opened fire in the cafeteria of Chardon High School, taking the lives of three students and wounding three others. Sedlak then served the Hudson City School District community in Hudson, Ohio, as an assistant principal at Hudson Middle School, principal at East Woods Intermediate School, and unit principal at Hudson High School. Currently, Sedlak is the director of human resources for the Twinsburg City School District, in Twinsburg, Ohio. Sedlak is also a founding member of the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) Principal Recovery Network and is committed to collaborating with others to improve safety in our schools.

Jaclyn Schildkraut, PhD, is the executive director of the Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium. Prior to this appointment, she served as an associate professor of criminal justice at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Oswego. A national expert on school and mass shootings, Schildkraut’s work focuses on the effectiveness of policies aimed at prevention, mitigation, response, and recovery. Her most recent research, conducted as part of the largest study in the nation to date, examined the effects of school lockdown drills on participants and their skill mastery. In addition to being published in a book and multiple journal articles, the findings of this research are being used by school districts to help improve their emergency response plans. She also has conducted and published research examining the impacts of mass shootings on survivors, which led to her providing an expert report for Canada’s Mass Casualty Commission charged with investigating the April 2020 mass casualty event in Nova Scotia. Other recent projects have considered perceptions of armed teachers and policy responses to mass shootings.

Schildkraut is the co-author of Mass Shootings: Media, Myths and Realities (2016); Columbine, 20 Years Later and Beyond: Lessons from Tragedy (2019); and Lockdown Drills: Connecting Research and Best Practices for School Administrators, Teachers, and Parents (2022). She served as the editor on two additional volumes—Mass Shootings in America: Understanding the Debate, Causes, and Responses (2018) and Guns in American Society: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics, Culture, and the Law (3rd edition; 2022), and has two additional books under contract. Her research related to mass and school shootings also has been published more than 40 scholarly articles that appear in journals such as the American Journal of Criminal Justice, Homicide Studies, Journal of School Violence, Victims & Offenders, School Psychology Review, Educational Policy, Security Journal, and Crime Prevention and Community Safety. Schildkraut’s research and expertise are regularly sought after by local, national, and international news outlets, including CNN, Fox News, The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, Associated Press, Reuters, BBC News, and The Telegraph (UK).

Greg Waples is the senior manager of state engagement and outreach for the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP). He manages grassroots advocacy efforts, coordinating with NASSP principals, educators, state associations, and partners to advance the policy priorities of school leaders. He also helped found and lead the NASSP Principal Recovery Network, a group of school leaders who have experienced school shootings in their buildings and now reach out to every school that suffers a shooting tragedy to provide advice, guidance, support, and recovery assistance. Prior to joining NASSP, Waples worked for more than three years as a campaign manager at the Center for American Progress, focused on gun violence prevention issues. He also previously worked in the Executive Office of the President in the White House. He has several cycles of political campaign experience, including serving as a Pennsylvania regional field director on the 2012 presidential campaign. Waples has a bachelor’s degree in history from Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania.