CISC Leadership Symposium 2024

When our students enter our classrooms feeling like they can’t and then leave knowing they didn’t, it creates a vicious cycle where students feel like they don’t belong. Conversely, students feel greater belonging when they succeed academically.

Districts across the country are working to accelerate learning after the pandemic. We also recognize the challenges many students face with their social and emotional health. In this session, we will explore the reciprocal relationship between belonging and academic achievement. Leaders will leave the session ready to create more coherent and aligned plans that accelerate learning and students’ sense of belonging.

Restorative practices (RP) provides a space for us to connect with the way of our ancestors to embrace a more connected way of being and responding to others in our community. RP is more than just a way of approaching discipline and is a human centered approach to life and work. The most effective leaders have a restorative heart and mind set. They embrace their own humanity, and that of others, through reflection, growth, vulnerability and healing. Effective leaders ensure the same opportunities are provided to staff so that the workplace is not just efficient and effective, but also a place where conflict can be resolved and the work is approached with a collective focus on community. Effective leaders recognize that harm in life and work is inevitable and are committed to restoring and growing from these incidents with their staff and communities.

You will leave our time together with a basic understanding of restorative practices and tangible resources to guide circles; resources to build systems, time and space for restorative practices; and strategies to model and coach staff/teams in having difficult conversations, and holding each other accountable in a way that is loving and respectful.

Far too many perennial problems exist in schools. These education problems are becoming crises and require the urgency and commitment to finding solutions. This session invites leaders to approach issues with 7 mindshifts to think about old problems in new ways. The mindshifts help leaders to find solutions by changing the way problems are approached. The longer an issue goes unresolved, the more it is accepted as “normal”. Issues like teacher retention, equity, grading practices, and student discipline are important, urgent, and persistent. These problems require a shift in thinking to address their on-going impact on schools and students.

The school-to-prison pipeline, STPP, is affecting schools throughout our country. The pandemic created a mental health crisis that has only exacerbated the STPP. Now more than ever educational and community agencies are leaning on Restorative Justice.

Traditional punitive discipline models have not only fallen short but have perpetuated the STPP. This presentation will focus on how Restorative Justice can assist in breaking the STPP through a culturally rooted framework. We will discuss examples and outcomes based on best practices and also focus on justice and healing oriented practices with community agencies, parents and schools.

The Impact Teams Multi-Tiered System of Supports (IT-MTSS) Framework is the only MTSS model that empowers learners to drive their learning by determining personalized tiered-support through self-peer assessment, reflection and goal setting. Our model provides a proactive, learner-centered, strengths-based approach for learning acceleration to close opportunity gaps through the principles of deliberate practice. When students are empowered to own their learning they develop the academic, social and emotional dispositions to amplify learner power.