School Specialty, Inc. Appoints Dr. Kymm Ballard as New Executive Director of its SPARK™ Physical Education Program
April 23, 2015 at 12:00 pm EDT
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School Specialty, Inc. announced the appointment of Dr. Kymm Ballard as Executive Director of SPARK™. As the most researched and field-tested physical and health education program, SPARK is a key component of School Specialty's Physical Education offering. Dr. Ballard assumes her new role as Executive Director, following her distinguished leadership in the program as Partnership Development Specialist since 2009, and succeeds Paul Rosengard from the Company.
Dr. Ballard's professional experiences include more than a decade as a PE teacher and athletic director, several years as an administrator and the co-developer of North Carolina's first high school demonstration school. She is the former PE, Athletics and Sports Medicine Consultant with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction; and has drafted, advocated and promoted the Healthy Active Children Policy of the NC State Board of Education and the state's Essential Standards for Physical Education. Dr. Ballard also supported the North Carolina Alliance for Athletics, Health, Physical Education, Recreation, Dance, and Sport Management (NCAAHPERD-SM) to retool the physical education teachers with SPARK statewide training the trainer model, more currently known as "IsPod" (In School Prevention of Diabetes).
In providing guidance to schools and other national organizations to help secure resources for quality PE programs, she served as the President of the Society of State Directors for Health, Physical Education and Recreation, as well as the Chair for the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) Public Relations Committee, among other committees. In addition, Dr. Ballard currently serves as the Coordinator of Health and Physical Education at Campbell University. In her Partnership Development role at SPARK, she has also been successful in helping to initiate and facilitate millions of dollars to schools to address obesity prevention.
SSI Liquidating, Inc., formerly School Specialty, Inc. (SSI), is a distributor of supplies, furniture, technology products, supplemental learning products (instructional solutions) and curriculum solutions, primarily to the education marketplace. It designs, develops and provides educators with its own products and services. Its segments include Distribution and curriculum. Distribution segment offers products that include basic classroom supplies and office products, supplemental learning materials, physical education equipment and classroom technology. Curriculum segment is a PreK-12 curriculum-based publisher of products in the categories of science and reading and literacy. Through its SSI Guardian subsidiary, the Company provides curriculum, training and safety and security products for school, healthcare and corporate workplace. Its SOAR life products are a customized offering for hospitals, long-term care, therapeutic facilities, home care, surgery centers and clinics.
SCHOOL SPECIALTY, LLC 
