Donald Clark is a public school educator who has served as an elementary reading teacher to special needs children for 30 years. He has tirelessly served more than 750 of the most academically and behaviorally challenged students at his school. His entire career has been spent at Taylor Ray Elementary, a low income, high minority school in Rosenberg, Texas which is a part of the Lamar Consolidated Independent School District.  In 2008, Taylor Ray Elementary was nationally recognized as a Blue Ribbon school because of outstanding student achievement.

Don has been chosen as the Taylor Ray Elementary Teacher of the Year five times by his peers.  He also received the Richmond, Texas Rotary Club’s Educator of the Year award.  In the summer of 2006, Donald was granted the Lifetime Achievement Award in Elementary Education for the state of Texas by the H.E.B. Excellence in Education Awards team.  He was given this award for his success and creativity in the classroom as well as his life long dedication and service to his profession and community. He received  $50,000 as a part of this award, half of which was designated as a gift to Taylor Ray Elementary. A portion of the $25,000 he received was used to fulfill one of his dreams which was to start a business, Crossroads Publications, and begin publishing the reading program which had helped so many of his students achieve academic success. 

Donald Clark has provided numerous instructional and inspirational in-service training sessions for public educators at the local, state and national levels.  He has written several inspirational devotional books for public school educators. Fishing With Phonics is his first publication of educational materials. He graduated with honors with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Houston Baptist University and is certified in the state of Texas to teach elementary education, learning disabled students, and students who have English as a second language.

When asked about this reading program and his inspiration for it, Clark states, “My inspiration and my best teachers have been the more than 750 academically and behaviorally challenged students I have served. They have shown me how to teach them, what works and what doesn’t. This program is the cream of my professional career. This program synthesizes and simplifies the most successful materials and strategies that have risen to the top throughout three decades of in-service training and my being shaken and stirred by one reading fad after another. Through the use of this program, the kids in my class have been more productive and had more fun learning to read than ever before. By sharing this program I am passing on a precious and valuable gift.” 

Donald has been wed twenty five years to his wife Catherine, a reading specialist, and is the father of three children. He enjoys music, running, writing, gardening and serving others through the various faith based groups with which he is associated.