Leadership

Evisha Ford, EdD, is the founding executive director of the iCan Dream Center in Illinois and a sought-after thought leader specializing in trauma-compassionate leadership, equity, and diverse learners. She is a former assistant superintendent and director of special education.

Closing student achievement gaps requires specific actions focused on acceleration and leveling up strategies to achieve grade-level proficiency or beyond. Acceleration is the pathway; we cannot continue to go backward if our goal is to move forward. Discover how to erase inequities in student learning while building hope and confidence in both teachers and students. This is equity in action.

Dr. Daman Harris is an award-winning education leader focused on equity, instructional leadership, student advancement, and educator development.

As educators and leaders across the nation grapple with the challenge of changing policies, practices, and procedures to ensure high levels of learning for all students, the inability to effectively change the mindsets of colleagues, faculty, and staff is proving to be the biggest hurdle of all. Hence, in order for systems to change, outlooks will also need to change.

Kyle is the principal of Powell Middle School in Powell, Wyoming. Prior to administration, he was an elementary teacher where he developed the passion for professional learning communities and the power behind building a strong culture and teamwork in a school.

Melissa Dickson, EdM, is an outstanding presenter and educator. She is passionate about providing teachers with research-based ideas and strategies that they implement immediately. In her decades as an educator, Melissa has been a literacy coach, staff developer, site-based team leader, mentor teacher, inclusion teacher, classroom teacher, and early childhood teacher.

Instructional leaders (e.g., coaches, principals, and teacher leaders) work with teachers to improve educational outcomes for their students. This role can be overwhelming, especially when students and teachers have lost a full year of academic instruction.

Do the educators in your school or district feel valued, connected, and empowered? Join the authors of Ensuring Teachers Matter, Shelly Wilfong and Ryan Donlan, as they explore the concept of mattering and its power to increase the effectiveness of professional growth and learning.

Samuel Nix, EdD, has been an educator for more than twenty years with a background as a teacher, middle and high school principal, and chief of schools in a variety of school settings.

Join implementation science expert and author of Implement with IMPACT, Jenice Pizzuto, to learn about the difference between implementation and implementation science— and why, as leaders, you should know and care about the difference as you fund and lead change efforts. Participants will receive tools for immediate use in their districts.