Jon advocates for parents of neurodiverse and disabled children at international schools. This journey began when he started a parent-to-parent support group for parents of children with additional needs at his school in December 2020 with a little over 70 parents.
Jon is an at-home dad of 2 awesome autistic sons. Jon’s wife is an international school teacher of Humanities. Jon’s sons have grown up globally since they were ages 2 and 1: in Al Ain, UAE, for 2 years; in Qingdao, China, for 3 years; and in Vienna, Austria, since August 2019.
Today, Jon is focused on advocating for parents of neurodiverse and disabled children’s access to support and education at international schools. Past experiences of Jon include being part of a 3 person team that launched the School Closure Group for Online Learning in February 2020 on Facebook to network Covid closure impacted educators (today the primary administrator remains Kirsten Durward and the group is called the Global Educator Collective; the group went from 3 members to 100,000 members in 22 days, shortly after which — unrelatedly — Jon slipped into a very severe depression that his PALSS group later helped him recover from). Jon has a Masters of Teaching (2011) in Elementary Education from University of Virginia.
Jon had a journalism career covering emerging markets in Asia (2011 to 2015) writing mostly for Forbes Asia. The journalism career began with a blog post, a hedge fund manager with a publicly listed company, and an invitation to come visit said company onsite in Mongolia. His brief journalism career led him from interviews with one of the richest men in Sri Lanka to coverage of World Toilet Day, from an article about East Timor coffee to a profile of astounding Pakistani educator Humaira Bachal, from interviewing an impact investment fund manager in Nepal to moderating a panel of hedge fund managers in Hong Kong, and so on. Along the way Jon determined plumbing might just be mankind’s most impressive invention and that his kids needed him more focused on them at home.
Jon is an active participant in Families In Global Transition (FIGT), Safe Passages Across Networks (SPAN), Expat Kids Learning Differently (a parent-only Facebook page) as well as the Parent Association of Learning Support Students (PALSS) he facilitates at his school.
