Our Company
ED311 is dedicated to providing relevant, timely, comprehensive, and cost-effective professional development resources for educators and school administrators in the areas of school law, restorative practices, special education, MTSS, ethics, bullying, school technology, and more.
In 2018, ED311 merged with our other company the Texas School Administrators’ Legal Digest to become jointly known as ED311. The goal of the merger and rebranding was to reflect our broader mission to serve educators with a variety of resources on all topics related to education.
ED311 is a DBA of Park Place Publications, a Texas Limited Partnership owned by Ambrose Austin. We have been based in Austin, TX since 2005. The company has been in continuous operation since 1984. Frank Kemerer founded the Legal Digest newsletter and our heralded law conferences and ran the company through 2004. At that time Jim Walsh became the primary owner, hiring Ted Siff to run the company on his behalf. In 2015, Ted Siff became the primary owner and stewarded the shift from print to digital and to our new name ED311. In January of 2023, Ambrose Austin took over ownership.
Our Team
Ambrose Austin
Chief Executive Officer/Owner
Ambrose Austin has been with ED311 since 2010 and leading things since 2015. Feel free to contact him with any questions you might have. Ambrose has a Masters in Legal Studies from Texas State University and a BA from The New School in New York City. He’s a generalist rather than a specialist and likes to take on projects where he can learn new skills. He’s a big fan of women’s soccer and loves to read, write, listen to podcasts, and binge TV shows both high and low brow. Always a Texan at heart, Ambrose currently lives in beautiful, rainy Portland, Oregon with his elderly dog and cat.
Danielle King
Director of Finance
Danielle King has been with ED311 and Legal Digest since 2014 and is happy to assist you with payments or registrations. She has a B.S. degree in both Mathematics and Hydrology and she is currently working towards CPA certification. She enjoys working with numbers, growing plants, reading historical fiction, and hiking the greenbelt. She has been a volunteer with the non-profit Inside Books Project since 2010 where she currently serves as Treasurer.She loves to travel but is also always happy to return to her home in East Austin where she lives with her partner, 2 dogs, 2 cats, and hundreds of plants.
Andrea Payne
Marketing and Event Manager
Andrea Payne is a graduate of UT Austin, and she joins ED311 after a long career as an English teacher in AISD. She now brings her experience from the trenches of public education to help the ED311 team meet the needs of school districts across Texas. She loves to write fiction when she has the time, but she especially enjoys just hanging with her family. She lives in South Austin with her husband and son, a grumpy cat, and a darling dog.
CH Powers
Accounting and Website Administrator
CH Powers has been with Ed311 since 2022. They hold a Bachelors of Science in Business Administration and Marketing from Western Governors University. CH comes from a diverse work background having served as an administrator for both public and private sectors. They are a specialist when it comes to customer service, assisting with special projects, and managing the website and webstore. CH is always ready to answer your questions about all things ED311. CH is also a creative who spends their free time making pottery and selling artwork at fairs and pop-up markets around Texas.
chpowers@ed311.com
Jennifer Childress
Editor
Jennifer Childress is the Editorial Director for ED311 and has served in that role for more than 20 years. For more than ten years, she represented school districts in a wide variety of litigation matters for the Walsh Gallegos Law Firm. Jennifer currently serves as the Chief Deputy General Counsel for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Office of General Counsel (OGC). Ms. Childress grew up in South Texas and attended Rice University in Houston, where she received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English, with a minor in Sociology. She attended the University of Texas School of Law, receiving her Juris Doctorate degree in December 1993. During law school, Ms. Childress interned at the OAG’s Law Enforcement Defense Division and, upon graduation, she clerked for the United States District Court, Southern District of Texas, Houston Division. She previously worked for TDCJ’s OGC Division in 1995-1996 before transferring to the Law Enforcement Defense Division of the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) to represent TDCJ and other state agency clients in 1996-1998. Ms. Childress then transitioned to private practice with the Walsh Gallegos law firm where she represented school districts and district employees, as well as The GEO Group, Inc. in civil rights and employment litigation. Jennifer has four children who attended public school in Austin ISD.
jennifer@ed311.com