52nd year in education · Founder & Principal Consultant, GDS Consulting
Gary D. Soto
Gary D. Soto is in his 52nd year in education. He began as an instructional classroom aide, taught kindergarten and grades 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6, and served as an elementary and middle-school principal in Southern California before spending two decades leading a national school-improvement consulting organization. In 2018 he founded GDS Consulting (Gary D. Soto Consulting, Inc.), where, as Founder & Principal Consultant, he coaches superintendents, cabinets, principals, and instructional coaches in multiple school districts across the country.
Vita PDF available after final review
Coming soon
The vita download opens once the final version is approved.
Available now: Awards & recognitionCompany factsCompany information
Section 02
Who Gary is
As principal of Southridge Middle School in Fontana, California, he received the Milken Family Foundation National Educator Award, which he describes as recognition for reshaping American education. He is co-author of Crimes Against Learning: Solving the Serial Failure of School Reform, and the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from Equality California for his human-rights work.
His work rests on one conviction: student achievement rises when leaders understand the instructional model, hold a shared belief that every student can learn, and verify that classroom practice has actually changed.
Section 03
Career
2018 – present
Founder & Principal Consultant
GDS Consulting (Gary D. Soto Consulting, Inc.), Palm Springs, California
2018
Adjunct Instructor, Administrative Credential Program
University of La Verne
1997 – 2018
President and Co-Owner
Action Learning Systems, Inc., Pasadena, California — a national educational consulting organization, since closed
1987 – 1997
Principal
Southridge Middle School, Fontana Unified School District
mid-1980s
Assistant principal
Maple Elementary School, Fontana Unified School District
1977 – mid-1980s
Classroom teacher, grades K, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6; team leader
Upland Unified and Placentia Unified School Districts
1975 – 1977
Instructional classroom aide
Roynon Elementary School, Bonita Unified School District
Civic service (concurrent): Police Commissioner (eight years) and Human Services Commissioner (eight years), City of Claremont (Los Angeles County), with the two commission tenures spanning 1990–2006; past President of the Board of Directors, Equality California.
Section 04
Education & credentials
Degree
Master of Arts
Elementary and Middle School Administration / Principalship — California State University, Fullerton
Degree
Bachelor of Arts
Elementary Education and Teaching — University of La Verne
Institute
National Institute for Direct Instruction (NIFDI)
Completed The Institute on Becoming an Effective Direct Instruction Trainer, July 2024
Section 05
Where the work has been
His work with GDS has reached districts in California, Texas, Arizona, and beyond, with engagements ranging from multi-year district-wide leadership coaching to new-teacher academies and board-level sessions.
Representative engagements (documented):
- Hemet Unified School District — leadership coaching for all principals
- Palo Verde Unified School District — external provider for instructional leadership coaching
- Coachella Valley Unified School District — district-wide coaching and leadership academies
- Patterson Joint Unified School District — coaching-cycle program
- Fort Worth Independent School District — New Teacher Academy
Earlier career: Fontana Unified School District (principal); Upland Unified and Placentia Unified School Districts (teacher).
Section 06
Publications & frameworks
Book. Crimes Against Learning: Solving the Serial Failure of School Reform — Kit Marshall, Gary D. Soto, and Becky Salato (BookBaby, 2017; ISBN 978-0998735566).3
Crimes Against Learning — identifying the crimes
Frameworks taught in GDS engagements. The Achievement-Focused Coaching Cycle; Advice vs. Feedback: The Principal Role in Teacher Performance Improvement; the GDS Gradual Release Rubric (Beginning · Developing · Proficient · Exemplary) with its documented mastery gate; and student achievement goal-setting on the Lexile and Quantile Frameworks. Across all of them the vocabulary is constant: instructional leadership, evidence-based MTSS, The Science of Reading, Systematic Explicit Instruction, Best First Instruction, and Collective Efficacy.
Section 07
Awards & recognition
Award
Milken Family Foundation National Educator Award
1993, awarded while principal of Southridge Middle School, Fontana Unified School District. Education Week reported the 1992 award class announcement in December 1992.1 Gary refers to it as the National Educator Award for Reshaping American Education.
Award
Lifetime Achievement Award, Equality California
For contributions to protecting and advancing human rights.4
Section 08
Speaking
Gary keynotes and trains nationally for district leadership teams, principal cohorts, and new-teacher academies. Documented engagements include an education conference keynote at Vibiana, Los Angeles (October 2018); the Fort Worth ISD New Teacher Academy (May 2016); a conference breakout session (September 2025); and recurring district professional-development days for leadership and instructional staff in multiple districts (2023–2026). His 2018 interview in Psychology Today, “Effective School Leadership and Social Justice,” remains online.2
Current keynote topics: Collective Efficacy as the foundation of a success-oriented school system; instructional leadership and the principal's role in teacher performance improvement; the Science of Reading and Systematic Explicit Instruction at the district scale.
CVUSD staff event · 2024
District board-room PD · 2025
Section 09
References
Professional references — superintendents, district office leaders, and principals Gary has coached — are available on request through the contact form.
Over three decades Gary has also written letters of recommendation for dozens of educators he coached or supervised as they advanced to principal, director, cabinet, and superintendent roles — a record of the leadership pipeline his work builds.
Section 10
Business qualifications for procurement
The company’s procurement facts (legal name, entity, location, ownership classifications, NAICS code and vendor documents) are listed under Company facts on the GDS Consulting About page.
Section 11
Vita
Download Gary's vita (PDF). A two-page curriculum vitae covering positions held, education, recognition, publications, and service — prepared for district purchasing files and RFP attachments. Updated for the 2026-27 school year.
Vita PDF available after final review
Coming soon
The vita download opens once the final version is approved.
Available now: Awards & recognitionCompany factsCompany information
Sources for this page
Data as of 2026-10-22
- Education Week, “Honors & Awards,” December 2, 1992 — 1992 Milken Family Foundation National Educator Awards, California recipients. https://www.edweek.org/education/honors-awards/1992/12
- Rankin, J. G. (2018, Aug. 20). “Effective School Leadership and Social Justice.” Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/much-more-common-core/201808/effective-school-leadership-and-social-justice
- Marshall, K., Soto, G. D., & Salato, B. (2017). Crimes Against Learning: Solving the Serial Failure of School Reform. BookBaby. ISBN 978-0998735566.
- Palm Springs Pride, “Wall of Honor” — Equality California board presidency and Lifetime Achievement Award. https://www.pspride.org/wallofhonor
- Visible Learning, “Hattie Ranking: 252 Influences And Effect Sizes Related To Student Achievement” — December 2017 ranking lists collective teacher efficacy first with effect size d = 1.57. https://visible-learning.org/hattie-ranking-influences-effect-sizes-learning-achievement/