Karen Wagner has been working in alternative educational and therapeutic settings since 1985. A graduate of Harvard University's Graduate School of Education, Ms. Wagner holds a Masters Degree in Education. Her specialties include:

• Children at Risk
• Resiliency Models
• Prevention Models
• School design and development
• Middle college (early college) models
• Risk and Resiliency evaluations
• Non-violent conflict resolution including Mediation Training
• School reform strategies
• School to work initiatives
• Developmental education
• Transformational Counseling strategies
• Experiential education and expeditionary learning
• No Child Left Behind initiatives

She began her career working in a medium security prison as an educational consultant. From there she went on to develop alternative school programs and founded and directed one of Massachusetts' premier charter schools. Under her leadership, it was the first charter high school in the USA to be accredited by The New England Association of Schools and Colleges. It is presently a national award winning model charter school whose students consistently demonstrate success by passing the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment Tests and gaining acceptance to college.

Working in collaboration with public, private, business and community partners, Ms. Wagner is enormously successful at developing education and treatment models that reintegrate youth in "at-risk" situations with their families, communities, workforce and higher education. Ms. Wagner has presented at many local and national education conferences and has worked as a consultant to many United States school districts and charter schools.

Utilizing a strength-based developmental approach, Ms. Wagner helps schools (and individuals or districts) identify what strategies, approaches, and techniques are already working well for them and then assists them in building a customized program of continuous improvement.

Currently, she is writing a book on education transformation strategies and an interdisciplinary high school curriculum for a new school to open in Atlanta, Georgia in 2006. Ms. Wagner is the former Education Director at The Polestar School (an experiential education private school model) in Atlanta, Georgia. She does private consulting for individuals, schools and school districts and works with the court system as an expert witness on Children At Risk & Resiliency Factors. In addition, Ms. Wagner facilitates personal development and teacher training workshops and is on the faculty of The University of Phoenix. She is a board member of The Healing Forrest Foundation, Inc., an active member of The Play Foundation (an international education foundation based in Denmark), a member of The Harvard Alumni Association, The World Teacher's Society, Harvard's Family Involvement Network of Educators, The National Middle College Consortium, The Supervised Visitation Network, The National At Risk Educators’ Network, and the NY State Dispute Resolution Association. Ms. Wagner is also the co-founder of The National Parents’ Rights Association, a non-profit devoted to educating parents about their legal rights. She is presently developing The Hahn Academy, a residential school for boys in Atlanta, GA.

Wagner Consulting Services, LLC is her company that deals primarily with children at risk, the court system, education institutions and school development concerns.

CHIME Consulting, LLC: Continuous Human Improvement Metamodel Experts is her consultancy firm that works with individuals, couples, families and companies to develop continuous improvement development models. She is the author of the ACT series of seminars, Accelerated Consciousness Training, which assists professionals in conscious evolution. Karen lives with her husband, Michael, and her German Shepherd service dog, Zena, in Marietta, GA.