Dr. Ida Rose Florez is an influential thought leader who sees western education systems teetering on the brink of massive change. Ida Rose’s unique perspective and witty style make her a sought-after speaker, engaging audiences in workshops and keynote speeches across the U.S. and internationally. The former vice-president of NAEYC, Ida Rose was an invited expert panelist at an Obama administration White House event on excellence in education for Hispanics and keynoter for the Asian Preschool Education Annual Conference, the largest gathering of early educators in the world. She has presented to such luminaries as the governor of Shanghai and the California State legislature. Over the last decade, Ida Rose led statewide education initiatives in Arizona and California and was a National Science Foundation principal investigator. She served as an early childhood assessment subject matter expert with the U.S. National Governor’s Association and is frequently a grant reviewer for the National Science Foundation. Dr. Florez serves on the board of the Human Systems Dynamics Institute in Minneapolis. She is a certified Human Systems Dynamics Professional and certified Warm Data Host with the International Bateson Institute.
A published author, Dr. Florez’s work has appeared in parenting magazines, education trade magazines, and peer-reviewed academic journals writing articles on topics such as learning disabilities, understanding AD/HD, raising children with exceptional academic abilities, as well as general parenting articles on topics such as loving discipline and dealing with challenging behavior. Ida Rose has been published by Columbia University’s Teachers College Record and the UCLA Civil Rights Project. She is currently writing a book entitled, The End of Education as We Know It: (re)Birthing Regenerative Learning. Ida Rose holds a Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Arizona.
She has served as faculty at Penn State University College of Medicine, University of Arizona College of Education, Northern Arizona University College of Education, and Arizona State University Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College. In 2017 she founded a consulting practice serving U.S. and international clients. Ida Rose is a Master Gardner Trainee with University of Arizona Extension Office and, along with her husband, is developing an off-grid, sustainable living demonstration site that will include a passive solar home and greenhouse, an active solar generation system, onsite water recycling, and a 35,000-gallon rainwater harvesting system.
