Dr. Don Pemberton grew up in São Paulo, Brazil. At an early age, he witnessed firsthand how a child’s life circumstances impact long-term success and well-being—for better or for worse. Incited to improve the lives of children, he moved to the United States and earned his PhD in Counselor Education from the University of South Florida. For a decade he taught and counseled children of all ages in the Pinellas County School District, many of whom faced serious life challenges. Since then, Don resolved to enact widespread and lasting change in the lives of all children through access to excellent education.
Don has been extremely successful in achieving this goal. For almost a decade, he was the president of the Pinellas Education Foundation, which creates innovative programs to enable tens of thousands of public school children to advance their educational, artistic, and cultural development. In 1995, Don founded Take Stock in Children, which has guaranteed college scholarships for more than 24,000 children in all 67 Florida counties, equating to $149 million dollars in Florida prepaid foundation scholarship assets.
For the last several years, Dr. Don Pemberton has served as the director of the Lastinger Center for Learning at the University of Florida’s College of Education. At the Lastinger Center, Don has overseen the development, field-testing, and scaling of models and innovations which transform teaching and learning. He led the development of Algebra Nation, a learning system used by over 500,000 students and 20,000 teachers across Florida, South Carolina, Michigan, New York, Alabama, and Mississippi. He led the development of Early Learning Florida, a custom-built professional learning system of early childhood educators in Florida which has delivered content to more than 30,000 early learning educators in Florida. And he led the development of Winning Reading boost, a program that develops struggling students into fluent readers.
Don’s philosophy is simple: All children can succeed.
He has turned this dream into action and accomplished serious improvement in the lives of children. This year he is retiring, and in his wake he leaves successful institutions, impactful innovations, and hordes of individuals all inspired to continue Don’s vision forward. On behalf of the University of Florida, I would like to extend my gratitude for Dr. Donald Pemberton’s decades of devotion to championing children.
Adapted from remarks made by UF Lastinger Center Director Philip E. Poekert at Pemberton’s retirement celebration
