Ready for School 2020: How to plan for learning in any environment

Join us as we reimagine a new way for school leaders to ensure that all children learn.

Thursday, July 30, 2020
9:00 am-12:00 pm Pacific | 12:00 pm-3:00 pm Eastern
An online course

While officials at federal, state and local levels continue to debate about logistics for “reopening schools” in some fashion this fall, building-level leaders have to maintain our focus on the core mission of schools: student learning. Whatever decisions are made about the start of school, school leaders will need to guide their schools through complicated new terrain. You will need to expand your understanding of how learning happens in a virtual world, hone your sense of purpose, and bring a renewed sense of focus and clarity to your school community.

No matter what, learning will look different in the fall.  While schools pivoted quickly to deliver emergency instruction with the initial lockdown in March, our obligation now is to organize for coherent on-line instruction for the duration of the coming school year.  Transforming learning in this way will require that we all work differently to support the learning process. 

During this three-hour interactive session delivered by a nationally-known adult educator and a veteran school administrator, you will work through a blueprint to guide your school community to keep student learning at the forefront whatever the 2020-21 school year may bring. Elements of the blueprint include:

• Assessing learning
• Building new relationships and identifying individual student needs
• Driving anti-racist instruction and structures
• Empowering students to guide their own learning
• Ensuring equitable resource allocation
• Framing leadership across your school
• Mapping curriculum
• Planning for parent communication, training parent “co-teachers”
• Restructuring learning for synchronous and asynchronous modes
• Supervising teachers
• Supporting social-emotional learning
• Supporting technology

By the end of our time together, you will be able to:

• Explain a larger landscape of learning strategies, including key tools for teaching in a virtual world.
• Name next steps to restructure your school program, responding to new roles and responsibilities.
• Support members of your community through change.
• Connect with other school leaders to find motivation to reimagine your school within a community of practice.

Who should attend:

• K-12 Principals and Assistant Principals: Come as a team to form a unified plan.
• Teacher Leaders: Make a plan to guide curriculum decisions and divide the work.
• Principal Supervisors/Central Office Administrators: Rethink the roles and responsibilities of school leaders in our new reality.

Cost:
$90

Presenters:

Nancy Bacon is a teacher, instructional designer, and learning strategist who creates and delivers in-person and online learning events for nonprofit and public sector leaders. She has taught middle school and English learners. She founded and led a Golden Apple Award-winning professional development program serving public school teachers. She has been immersed in nonprofit learning, organizational development, and strategic planning for over two decades, developing a deep understanding of the role of community partnerships in education. She regularly writes about learning on her website: www.nancybacon.com

Gerrit Kischner is a 30-year veteran educator and long-time principal of Genesee Hill Elementary School in Seattle. Over 17 years as a school administrator, he has worked at the elementary, middle and high school levels. As a teacher, he taught in three states and internationally. An authority on teacher evaluation and professional growth, he currently serves as co-Chair of the Peer Assistance and Review (PAR) Panel for Seattle Public Schools. He is a presenter at the National Principals' Conference (NPC'17 Philadelphia), a certificate earner of the pilot National Board Certificate for Educational Leadership, and a former president of the Principals’ Association of Seattle Schools.

Refund policy:
We know plans change. You are welcome to contact us and have your registration transferred to another person at no cost to you. If that’s not feasible, we will issue a refund when you request one at least one week prior to the first class date. Refunds come via check and are cut twice a month. There will be a 10% handling charge for all refund requests unless otherwise noted within the course description. This charge helps offset fees we’ve paid for your registration and to cut the check.