Keynote: This year's keynote speaker is Dr. Adolph Brown. Dr. Adolph Brown, III is an urban and rural school educator, author, research-scientist, businessman, and keynote speaker.  He is a servant-leader at heart, and is admired around the world for his simple and direct “Real Talk,” and powerful, universal and timeless teachings.  Dr. Brown is best known for inspiring all who hear him to learn, laugh and lead, while simultaneously reducing implicit bias at every turn.  He is the leading provider of anti-bias training in business and education. His keynote is titled, Reflective Educators are Effective Educators. Self-reflection is a humbling process. It’s essential to find out why we think, say, and do certain things…then better ourselves. Self-reflection and self-correction are the highest forms of self learning and healing, thus to change the world around us, we must first change the world within us. Team pricing will be available for the keynote (open to all educators and leadership teams) as well as team pricing for the full day conference for principals from the same school/district. 

Session Descriptions Below: 

Breakout Sessions One:

• Ensuring Equity of Instruction for English Language Learners, Culture, Language and Academics -Karen Antonelli, Education Consultant Session 
• • This session explains the approaches and strategies that can be implemented school wide to support the English Language Learner in the classroom to ensure equity of learning in the content areas. While all learners must work to acquire new understanding and skills, second language speakers must also process the language in which the work is being done. Using video, simulation and active learning practices, participants in this session will explore unexpected ways in which these students struggle, compensatory strategies they often employ in an effort to fit in, and initial ways in which teachers and administrators can begin to support these learners in their struggle. Specific attention will be given to the impact of the English Language Learners Culture, differentiation between social language (BICS- basic interpersonal communicative skills) and academic language (CALP – cognitive academic language proficiency), the importance of language objectives to connect the ELL to content objectives and school wide literacy strategies that support the ELL across the content area to result in student growth.

• How School Leaders Can Advance Innovation and Collaboration to the Next Level by Building a System That Increases Collective Impact- Dr. Paul Ash, Senior Consultant for RIBAS Associates and former Superintendent of Schools in Lexington, MA (retired 2015). 
• • High performance teams can solve complex problems at a much deeper level than individuals can working alone, or typical teams in schools. In this workshop, participants will learn about the latest research on high performance teams and what distinguishes them from most school or district teams. Dr. Ash will discuss the five characteristics of extraordinary teams from all other teams (high genuine vulnerability trust, willingness to engage in conflict, team commitment, mutual accountability, and focusing on results). As school leaders, participants will also learn how to design a ‘backbone committee’ that will ensure your school has sufficient support to both lead complex change and overcome potential faculty and parent obstacles.

• Using the RI Teacher Evaluation Model as a Tool to Increase the Effectiveness of All Teachers in Your School/District - Susan T. Cote, Ed.D, Retired Superintendent of Schools East Bridgewater, MA, and current Assistant Principal for Teaching and Learning at McCourt Middle School in Cumberland, Rhode Island.
• • Provide participants with a deeper understanding of how the research on effective teaching is directly connected to Rhode Island Evaluation Model
  • Provide participants with a deeper understanding of what effective teaching looks like in the classroom; allowing them to better identify and site evidence that connects to each of the levels of performance on the rubric.
  • Prepare evaluators to have a deeper more effective post conference meetings.

• The Leadership Hourglass: Leadership for Life - Tony Bent; former Superintendent Shrewsbury (MA) Public School, and Christine Francis; former Asst. Superintendent,Westford (MA) Public School.
• • The professional literature on educational leadership often focuses on strategies and implementations. As leaders, we all want to know how to facilitate groups, determine goals, and achieve results. At the same time, leadership is often observed in the breach rather than in the practice because fundamental principles of successful human behavior are ignored. Leaders can find themselves in hot water because as Emerson is reported to have said, “What you are speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.” This workshop will focus on the 21 concepts and principles in the Leadership Hourglass to answer the question: Leadership for what? It is, essentially, leadership for life.
    

Breakout Sessions Two: 

• Creating a Receptive Adult Learning Culture in Order to Lead Equitable Outcomes-Barbara Mullen, Director LLN, CLEE, and Michelle Li, Continuous Improvement Coach and Facilitator, CLEE
• • This constructive session helps leaders design adult learning experiences in alignment with adult development best practices. This session covers the creation of norms, establishing receptivity and zones of proximal development. Participants will also learn the dispositions (adaptive and reflective skills) needed in order to create a receptive place of learning to lead for equitable outcomes for all students.

• A Growth Mindset: Social, Emotional, and Instructional Components of School and Classroom Management- Karen Antonelli, Education Consultant
• • This session explains the practices used by educators to create a growth mindset among educators and students supporting the vision of schoolwide social, emotional and instructional management. It introduces the evolution from a belief in fixed entity intelligence to a belief in growth mindset (learnable intelligence) based on the research of Carol Dweck, Eleanor Duckworth, and others. Building upon specific strategies that move students to adopt a growth mindset, the session moves into an introduction of how we as educators create and sustain schools and classrooms that make social-emotional learning an integral part of every interaction by managing academic, personal, and interpersonal activities in a way that develops self-management, self-awareness, responsible decision making, relationship and social awareness skills.

• Bringing Personalization (or any large initiative) to Scale - Kristen Danusis, Principal Captain Isaac Paine School, and Shawn Rubin, CEO Highlander Institute
• • Are you trying to bring your personalization efforts to scale? This session will focus on three components used by principals to grow the strong practices already in place in their building: aligning communication and creating a strategic plan for scaling the work, aligning existing curriculum and determining needs, and personalizing the learning for the adults. The presenters have worked and continue to work with school leaders and educators in and out of Rhode Island on this endeavor.

• The Leadership Hourglass: Leadership for Life - Tony Bent; former Superintendent Shrewsbury (MA) Public School, and Christine Francis; former Asst. Superintendent,Westford (MA) Public School.
• • The professional literature on educational leadership often focuses on strategies and implementations. As leaders, we all want to know how to facilitate groups, determine goals, and achieve results. At the same time, leadership is often observed in the breach rather than in the practice because fundamental principles of successful human behavior are ignored. Leaders can find themselves in hot water because as Emerson is reported to have said, “What you are speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.” This workshop will focus on the 21 concepts and principles in the Leadership Hourglass to answer the question: Leadership for what? It is, essentially, leadership for life.