Dr Andrew Bills is an Educational Leadership academic at Flinders University. He lectures, leads research and consults in the areas of policy, politics and practice with a particular interest in socially just reform in school communities struck hard by disadvantage. He is currently the Chief Investigator for three externally funded research projects in the alternative schooling space. His previous professional roles have included positions as an educational leader and designer of three alternative schools, a diagnostic school reviewer, a special education teacher and an Education Department leadership consultant. He works within the research traditions of critical policy sociology, emancipatory action research and lived experience phenomenology. He has published 20 journal articles and three books in these areas.

Nigel Howard worked as a teacher, education activist and school leader for the last thirty years and has been primarily concerned with students in poverty on the edge of schooling. His interest in school retention and achievement of secondary students stems from his involvement as a member of the Senior Secondary (2S) Team, where he was one of the major architects for a suite of subjects that became SACE Community Studies.

His work as an innovative teacher and leader has been documented in an ACE publication “Reforming Schools through Innovative Teaching” and “Making Justice Our Project” and in sundry other publications and project reports. He was on the expert’s group for the research project that led to “Listen to Me I’m Leaving”.