Michael Fullan Achieving District Wide Reform (keynote)

Using case studies from successful districts, this session will focus on the strategies that seem most likely to accomplish district-wide reform. Participants will have the opportunity to analyze specific cases.

Achieving Large Scale Reform

This session will focus on strategies necessary for whole system reform across the three levels of school-community/district/state.  Actual cases and results will be presented along with lessons learned and next steps.

Terry Deal Waking the Warrior and Wizard Within (preconference)

Traditional ideas of leadership are adequate for identifying and solving problems in today’s organizations.  As the late Peter Drucker observed: “Everything you learned is wrong.”  This presentation will highlight the political and symbolic roles of leaders.  As a warrior, how can you wage and win important battles.  As a wizard, how can you imbue an organization with magic and meaning.  Striking a balance between power and passion is key to success in organizations across the board: business, healthcare, education, non-profit and military.

Roland Barth Building a Professional Learning Community

The relationships among adults within a school have more to do with the character and the quality of a school and with the accomplishments of the students than any other factor.  In this interactive conversation, participants will learn to consider the ways that teachers are with one another at school.  Participants will consider independent, adversarial, congenial, and collegial forms of interaction.  Special attention will be devoted to the central elements of a healthy, collegial culture and to what school leaders can do to establish a professional learning community within their schools.

Carolyn Downey The Three-Minute Walk-Through with Reflective Inquiry

The heart of the informal Downey approach to walk-through is not the “technique” but the reflective question and follow-up conversation after several classroom observations.  The reflective question makes the Downey approach radically different than other walk through processes.  The Downey model does not use checklists as it is not normative. It is virtually paperless.  It has a very different goal – that of creating a culture of reflection in systems with self-analytical decision makers.  This session will present an overview of the 5 step classroom observation structure with a focus on curricular and instructional decisions/actions of the teacher.  It will also provide the five positive presuppositions in the Downey reflective question and a demonstration of the reflective conversation.

Elaine McEwan Leading for Reading Achievement

Participants will explore what kind of leadership and school culture are necessary to raise reading achievement in the context of five strategies for raising reading achievement in K-12 schools.

How to Deal with Angry, Troubled, Exhausted, or Just Plain Confused Teachers

Participants will learn about the most common mistakes administrators make in dealing with dysfunctional teachers and be introduced to the Assertive Intervention, a tool for helping dysfunctional teachers face their inappropriate behaviors that are standing in the way of positive school cultures and increased student achievement.

Randall Lindsey Culturally Proficient Leadership

Participants in this session will learn how the tools of culturally proficient leadership can enable them to create shifts in their schools so as to move from a tolerance of diversity to transformation for equity.  In this interactive session, participants will learn the four tools of cultural proficiency and how they are applied in day-to-day school settings.

Coaching for Culturally Proficient Instruction

Participants in this session will be presented with the Mental Model for Culturally Proficient Coaching.  This model is a fusion of Costa and Garmston’s Five States of Mind with the Five Essential Elements of Cultural Competence.  In this interactive session, participants will examine coaching conversations that are focused on the improvement of student achievement.

Alan Blankstein Failure is Not an Option

Participants will learn about the six principles that are essential for creating and sustaining learning communities in which all students succeed.  Specific strategies and processes will be provided, drawn from 15 years of research on how high-performing schools and school districts succeed.  Attendees will also learn how to develop mission and value statements that drive successful school cultures, and how to build consensus around systems and strategies for reaching low-performing students.  Participants will learn about the concept of building Courageous Leadership Capacity, and receive a framework for creating collaborative teams focused on teaching and learning.