Meet Our Leadership Team
Tony Mann, M.A.T
Co-Founder + Chair
For nearly two decades, Tony has worked as a public school leader, serving schools and communities ranging from rural America to the suburbs, from Oregon’s Wine Country to the diverse communities of East Multnomah County.
Early in his school leadership career, while serving as principal, Tony led a diverse middle school community to receive the rating of “Outstanding” on the Oregon School Report Card. For the last five years he has worked as the Superintendent of Schools for the Molalla River School District, a K-12 district located in Clackamas County. Across his career, Tony has led schools and school systems to excellence. Tony believes one of the key attributes of successful schools is the recognition that students are individuals, each one of them with specific strengths and individual needs.
As co-founder of the Oregon Recovery High School Initiative, Tony believes there are educational solutions specific to the needs of young people experiencing addiction. Research-supported, evidence-based school design focused on recovery from substance use disorders is the keystone. Such a school is capable of providing adolescents in recovery with a robust framework of support, energizing long-term recovery and delivering on the promises all young people deserve. It is in this kind of school that students can build a vision of hope for themselves and develop the aspiration, mindset and skills that allows them to achieve exceptional things for themselves and their communities.
Tony believes recovery high schools are a missing piece of Oregon’s promise to itself and its people. Without such a school, evidence suggests we will continue to criminalize and incarcerate some of our state’s brightest minds for what is, in the end, a healthcare crisis like none our state or country has ever seen.
Tony is a member of the Confederation of Oregon School Administrators (COSA), the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), and the American Association of School Administrators (AASA). He has presented to audiences large and small on instructional practices, leadership strategies in schools and organizational design, all for the singular purpose of producing measurable results for students.
Tony holds a Bachelor Degree in English from Oregon State University and a Masters Degree from Lewis and Clark College. Tony has experienced the promises of recovery and witnessed both the successes and tragedies taking place every day in our society for young people suffering from addiction. His hope for the future is rooted in the successful launch of Oregon’s first gold-standard recovery high school.