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Academy Program


Friday, November 4

7:00 – 8:00

Registration/Coffee and Pastry

Opening Keynote Presentation

8:00 – 9:15

Addressing the New and Emerging K-12 Challenges

Bill Daggett, CEO
International Center for Leadership in Education

A series of challenges are emerging as schools move toward the implementation of new standards, tests and teacher evaluation programs. The long term consequences on how schools address these immediate challenges are substantial. The keynote will offer suggestions on how to successfully address the challenges for both the short and the long term.

9:15 – 9:20

Stretch Break

Keynote
Presentation

9:20 – 10:45

Strategies and Tools to Move the
Mindset and the System

Ray McNulty, President
International Center for Leadership in Education

Aligning an entire system to focus on student achievement may require a shift in culture. Having the mindset to prepare all students to be college and career ready is the first step in holding higher expectations. This session will share strategies for shifting perceptions of leadership and teaching through easy-to-implement tools, including the We Survey Suite and the Daggett System for Effective Instruction rubrics. These tools will be used to guide the Strategic Planning sessions during the Academy.

10:45 – 11:00

Beverage Break

11:00 – 11:45

Strategic Planning

11:45 – 1:15

Networking Lunch with Bill Daggett and Deb Delisle (prepaid)
Prepaid box lunches or on your own

Keynote
Presentation

1:15 – 2:30

College and Career Readiness Through
Teacher (and Administrator) Evaluation

Sue Gendron, Policy Coordinator 
SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium, and
Senior Fellow, International Center for Leadership in Education
Deb Delisle, Senior Fellow
International Center for Leadership in Education

In order to realize the promise of college and career ready standards, the teaching and learning process must be redefined and re-imagined. At the core of this work is having all students engaged with highly effective educators. This session will begin with a review of the content specifications for more rigorous and relevant assessments and the impact they will have on depth of knowledge. It will then address educator evaluations and make the case for enveloping teacher and principal evaluations into a broader framework of effective human capital management within a district.

2:35 – 3:50

Concurrent Sessions –
Repeat Saturday at 9:30 am

 

How to Prepare Students to
be College and Career Ready

Sue Gendron, Policy Coordinator 
SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium, and
Senior Fellow, International Center for Leadership in Education

How do you know that your students are college and career ready? This session will take a deep dive into the type of evidence we should be eliciting from students in order to inform instruction. Aligning classroom practice with the expectations embedded in more rigorous standards challenges teachers and instructional leaders to have a thorough understanding of rigor and relevance. Learn about these important shifts along with concrete suggestions for redesigning instruction.

 

Educator Effectiveness: Accountability within the System

Deb Delisle, Senior Fellow,
International Center for Leadership in Education

This session will identify essential components of a comprehensive human capital system that includes meaningful teacher and principal evaluations. The InTASC Model Core Teaching Standards will be highlighted along with several promising practices that can impact student achievement. Participants will gain strategies to consider for incorporation into action plans that place students at the heart of the teaching-learning process.

 

Daggett System for Effective Instruction

Bill Daggett, CEO
International Center for Leadership in Education

To improve student performance, the nation’s most rapidly improving schools have found it is essential to align the priorities, initiatives, and work of all levels of the system from classroom to school to district around instructional effectiveness. The Daggett System for Effective Instruction has been designed based on an extensive review of the research, knowledge of the best practices in these schools, and a deep understanding about what schools can reasonably afford and what they can reasonably impact. Dr. Daggett will describe specific tools and strategies schools can use to improve the performance of all students.

 

Managing for Today, Leading for Tomorrow

Ray McNulty, President
International Center for Leadership in Education
Paul Ezen, Chief Academic Officer
International Center for Leadership in Education

Providing both management and leadership in the chaos of today’s rapidly changing environment is difficult and growing harder by the day. We must elicit superior work from our people, meet ever rising expectations for academic performance, satisfy increasing constituent demands, and, on top of all that, prepare for the greater challenges that lie ahead. At the International Center for Leadership in Education we recognize these emerging challenges and in this session will share the three distinct skill sets needed to build leadership density into your system: Divergent Skills, Delivery Skills, and Discovery Skills.

 

Creating a Collaborative Model to Support Learning

Lin Kuzmich, Senior Consultant
International Center for Leadership in Education

The impetus for improving student performance does not occur through professional development alone. Implementation of instructional effectiveness in the learning environment also improves student achievement. Learn how to support teaching and learning in your school with walk-through strategies and a collaborative model for classroom visits that achieves excellent results.

 

Learning Together Site Visit
Learning Together will provide an opportunity to see its cross-age peer tutoring program in action with a partner school, DeZavala Middle School in Irving, TX. At the school, participants will observe an actual tutoring session.  Please sign up at the Learning Together table if you have not done so already. Space is limited.

3:50 – 4:00

Beverage Break

4:00 – 5:00

Strategic Planning


Saturday, November 5

7:30 - 8:00

Coffee and Pastry

Keynote
Presentation

8:00 – 9:15

It’s Not About Theory and Talk;
It’s About a Relentless Focus on Instruction

Ray McNulty, President
International Center for Leadership in Education
Sue Szachowicz, Principal
Brockton High School, Brockton, Massachusetts

In a recent Harvard University conference report focused on closing the achievement gap, Prof. Ron Ferguson made the following comment about the success of Brockton High School in educating all students to high levels: “The main lesson was that student achievement rose when leadership teams focused thoughtfully and relentlessly on improving the quality of instruction.” This session will discuss the importance of instructional leadership and share strategies that leadership teams have used to become relentless and focused on improving instruction.

9:15 – 9:30

Beverage Break

9:30 – 10:45

Concurrent Sessions –
Repeat of Friday 2:35 pm

 

How to Prepare Students to
be College and Career Ready

Sue Gendron, Policy Coordinator 
SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium, and
Senior Fellow, International Center for Leadership in Education

How do you know that your students are college and career ready? This session will take a deep dive into the type of evidence we should be eliciting from students in order to inform instruction. Aligning classroom practice with the expectations embedded in more rigorous standards challenges teachers and instructional leaders to have a thorough understanding of rigor and relevance. Learn about these important shifts along with concrete suggestions for redesigning instruction.

 

Educator Effectiveness: Accountability within the System

Deb Delisle, Senior Fellow,
International Center for Leadership in Education

This session will identify essential components of a comprehensive human capital system that includes meaningful teacher and principal evaluations. The InTASC Model Core Teaching Standards will be highlighted along with several promising practices that can impact student achievement. Participants will gain strategies to consider for incorporation into action plans that place students at the heart of the teaching-learning process.

 

Daggett System for Effective Instruction

Bill Daggett, CEO
International Center for Leadership in Education

To improve student performance, the nation’s most rapidly improving schools have found it is essential to align the priorities, initiatives, and work of all levels of the system from classroom to school to district around instructional effectiveness. The Daggett System for Effective Instruction has been designed based on an extensive review of the research, knowledge of the best practices in these schools, and a deep understanding about what schools can reasonably afford and what they can reasonably impact. Dr. Daggett will describe specific tools and strategies schools can use to improve the performance of all students.

 

Managing for Today, Leading for Tomorrow

Ray McNulty, President
International Center for Leadership in Education
Paul Ezen, Chief Academic Officer
International Center for Leadership in Education

Providing both management and leadership in the chaos of today’s rapidly changing environment is difficult and growing harder by the day. We must elicit superior work from our people, meet ever rising expectations for academic performance, satisfy increasing constituent demands, and, on top of all that, prepare for the greater challenges that lie ahead. At the International Center for Leadership in Education we recognize these emerging challenges and in this session will share the three distinct skill sets needed to build leadership density into your system: Divergent Skills, Delivery Skills, and Discovery Skills.

 

Creating a Collaborative Model to Support Learning

Lin Kuzmich, Senior Consultant
International Center for Leadership in Education

The impetus for improving student performance does not occur through professional development alone. Implementation of instructional effectiveness in the learning environment also improves student achievement. Learn how to support teaching and learning in your school with walk-through strategies and a collaborative model for classroom visits that achieves excellent results.

 

Quadrant D Classroom

Linda Jordan, Senior Consultant
International Center for Leadership in Education

Quadrant D teaching and learning engages all learners in using the Rigor/Relevance Framework at high levels by creating opportunities for students to think and work. This session will demonstrate how to move a Quadrant A task toward Quadrant D by using researched-based strategies to increase rigor and relevance. Participants will experience a learning environment that models effective instruction using performance tasks and engage in meaningful discussions around approaches that can be applied in a single class period.

 

Concurrent Sessions –
Best Practices
Repeat at 1:30 pm

 

Organizational Leadership:
Create a Culture of High Expectations

Bill Daggett,
CEO
International Center for Leadership in Education

The first step in a systemwide approach to student achievement is to create a culture of high expectations. Administrators need to ensure that the goal of rigor, relevance, and relationships for all students appears in district and school vision and mission statements and that all students have an opportunity to help establish their achievement targets. This session will share key elements in creating a culture of high expectations.

 

Using Growth Data to Empower Teachers
and Support Students

Ray McNulty, President
International Center for Leadership in Education

Sean McGrew, Director of Research & Evaluation
Seppy Basili, Senior Vice President and Chief Academic Officer
Catapult Learning

Growth models and value-added analyses are ubiquitous. Longitudinal analyses of test scores have gotten a lot of press as tools for accountability and evaluation, but the greatest promise in student growth models is how they can inform instruction and drive student achievement and professional development. This session will describe how district leaders can use growth analyses to empower teachers and support students. The focus will be on what the growth results can tell us and the inquiry those results should drive. Several practical examples of ways in which superintendents and principals have used growth analysis in supportive rather than simply evaluative ways will be shared.

 

The Real World of Leadership

Sue Szachowicz, Principal
Brockton High School, Brockton, Massachusetts

Thousands of books have been written about what leadership means, how leaders work, how leaders make decisions. But, when you are in that moment that requires action, you do not have time to run to the bookshelf and review the literature. Moreover, situations often have multiple solutions; there is not one clear path to follow. In this session, difficult leadership challenges involving leading change, facing tough personnel issues, and handling adversarial situations will be explored and a pragmatic approach to dealing with these challenges will be offered.

 

 

Sparta School — Alignment of Vision, Passion, Purpose

Christopher Barnes, Principal
Sparta School, Sparta, North Carolina

This preK-8 school has made tremendous progress over the last three years. The students, staff, and community have worked collaboratively to move the school from corrective action sanctions based on Title I regulations to being identified as a high student growth/high student proficiency school. This session will illustrate how the establishment of a common vision, new leadership, deeper teacher collaboration, and the institution of research-based systems has deepened learning for the students. Examples of alternative scheduling as well as new ways to disseminate data will be provided.

 

A District’s Approach to Decision Making Through
Data and Professional Collaboration

Mike Faulk, Superintendent
Central Community School District

A culture of learning is cultivated through supporting staff to grow professionally, providing the time for collaboration, and encouraging the desire to learn new ways of teaching students. Central Community embarked on a three-year commitment to facilitate decision making not only through test scores, but also through perception data using the We Survey Suite. This session will describe the steps taken to build on strength, how to handle conversations around areas of improvement, as well as low cost solutions for professional development.

 

Quadrant D Classroom

Linda Jordan, Senior Consultant
International Center for Leadership in Education

Quadrant D teaching and learning engages all learners in using the Rigor/Relevance Framework at high levels by creating opportunities for students to think and work. This session will demonstrate how to move a Quadrant A task toward Quadrant D by using researched-based strategies to increase rigor and relevance. Participants will experience a learning environment that models effective instruction using performance tasks and engage in meaningful discussions around approaches that can be applied in a single class period.

12:05 – 1:30

Lunch – on your own

1:30 – 2:45

Concurrent Sessions – Best Practices
Repeat from 10:45 am

 

Organizational Leadership:
Create a Culture of High Expectations

Bill Daggett,
CEO
International Center for Leadership in Education

The first step in a systemwide approach to student achievement is to create a culture of high expectations. Administrators need to ensure that the goal of rigor, relevance, and relationships for all students appears in district and school vision and mission statements and that all students have an opportunity to help establish their achievement targets. This session will share key elements in creating a culture of high expectations.

 

Using Growth Data to Empower Teachers
and Support Students

Ray McNulty, President
International Center for Leadership in Education

Sean McGrew, Director of Research & Evaluation
Seppy Basili, Senior Vice President and Chief Academic Officer
Catapult Learning

Growth models and value-added analyses are ubiquitous. Longitudinal analyses of test scores have gotten a lot of press as tools for accountability and evaluation, but the greatest promise in student growth models is how they can inform instruction and drive student achievement and professional development. This session will describe how district leaders can use growth analyses to empower teachers and support students. The focus will be on what the growth results can tell us and the inquiry those results should drive. Several practical examples of ways in which superintendents and principals have used growth analysis in supportive rather than simply evaluative ways will be shared.

 

The Real World of Leadership

Sue Szachowicz, Principal
Brockton High School, Brockton, Massachusetts

Thousands of books have been written about what leadership means, how leaders work, how leaders make decisions. But, when you are in that moment that requires action, you do not have time to run to the bookshelf and review the literature. Moreover, situations often have multiple solutions; there is not one clear path to follow. In this session, difficult leadership challenges involving leading change, facing tough personnel issues, and handling adversarial situations will be explored and a pragmatic approach to dealing with these challenges will be offered.

 

Sparta School — Alignment of Vision, Passion, Purpose

Christopher Barnes, Principal
Sparta School, Sparta, North Carolina
This preK-8 school has made tremendous progress over the last three years. The students, staff, and community have worked collaboratively to move the school from corrective action sanctions based on Title I regulations to being identified as a high student growth/high student proficiency school. This session will illustrate how the establishment of a common vision, new leadership, deeper teacher collaboration, and the institution of research-based systems has deepened learning for the students. Examples of alternative scheduling as well as new ways to disseminate data will be provided.

 

A District’s Approach to Decision Making Through
Data and Professional Collaboration

Mike Faulk, Superintendent
Central Community School District

A culture of learning is cultivated through supporting staff to grow professionally, providing the time for collaboration, and encouraging the desire to learn new ways of teaching students. Central Community embarked on a three-year commitment to facilitate decision making not only through test scores, but also through perception data using the We Survey Suite. This session will describe the steps taken to build on strength, how to handle conversations around areas of improvement, as well as low cost solutions for professional development.

 

Quadrant D Classroom

Linda Jordan, Senior Consultant
International Center for Leadership in Education

Quadrant D teaching and learning engages all learners in using the Rigor/Relevance Framework at high levels by creating opportunities for students to think and work. This session will demonstrate how to move a Quadrant A task toward Quadrant D by using researched-based strategies to increase rigor and relevance. Participants will experience a learning environment that models effective instruction using performance tasks and engage in meaningful discussions around approaches that can be applied in a single class period.

2:45 – 3:00

Beverage Break

3:00 – 5:00

Strategic Planning


Sunday, November 6

8:00 – 8:30

Coffee and Pastry

Keynote Presentation

8:30 – 10:00

Teaching College/Career Ready Learners

Linda Jordan, Senior Consultant
International Center for Leadership in Education

The Daggett System for Effective Instruction is where research and best practices meet. The DSEI framework can help teachers, schools, and districts target their efforts to improve student achievement. Teaching is a key aspect of the framework. What is effective teaching? How do students learn? Which instructional strategies encourage rigorous and relevant learning? Helping educators answer these questions is the focus of this session.

10:00 – 10:10

Beverage Break

Closing Keynote
10:10 – 11:00

 

Provide Opportunities for Focused Follow-up

Bill Daggett, CEO, and Ray McNulty, President
International Center for Leadership in Education

Now that you’ve done some planning, it’s time for implementation. Which survey will you administer? How will you follow up on those results? How will you engage your staff with your action plan when you return? In order to be successful with next steps, we must use data, research, and experiences to make a difference. This session will share some strategies for transitioning from action plan to implementation and ways to sustain the momentum gained from the Academy.