Elementary Principals Convention
October 9-11, 2024 | Osthoff Resort, Elkhart Lake
Cost of Registration *You must be logged in to see member pricing Hotel Information Schedule of EventsWednesday | October 9, 202411:30-4:00 PM Pre-Convention Registration 12:30-4:00 PM Pre-Convention Legal Seminar ($99) 1. Elementary Principals Legal Seminar Effective Leadership at the elementary level requires that principals understand legal basics, including special education, Title IX, constitutional law, and relevant areas of family law. In addition, it requires principals to keep abreast of changes in the law and agency guidance. This three-hour presentation will reinforce legal basics that all principals need to know and identify important hot topics, including restraint and seclusion, Act 20, free speech, playground issues, and more. The presenters, all seasoned attorneys, will come prepared with case studies to challenge group thinking and will be ready for questions as they lead a lively group discussion! 2. Harnessing the Power of AI for Elementary Leaders We can use AI to enhance decision-making, streamline administrative processes, unlock insights from data, and support student success. You will walk away from this session able to harness AI in new ways to save time, grow your impact, and better balance your work and private life. The session will have one section for leaders just beginning to explore AI and a second section for those wanting to explore intermediate applications, so whether you're new to the world of AI, or have already utilized these tools for tasks like drafting correspondence, data analysis or helping your staff enhance teaching and learning, you will not want to miss this interactive session. Both the introductory and intermediate sections of this session will have facilitated discussion and hands-on time for the AI tools. 2:00-4:00pm Pre-Convention Session ($49) Planning for Your Retirement
Joel Craven, Owner, Astraios Financial LLC This session will provide information on the three legs of a solid retirement: the WI Retirement System, Social Security and personal savings (e.g. Roth, 403(b) plans, etc.). The session will also cover what educators should know about putting savings to good use and public service loan forgiveness. Come with your questions and leave better prepared for your future.
5:00-6:00 PM Welcome Reception Thursday | October 10, 20247:30 AM Registration 7:30-8:15 AM New Principal’s Breakfast If you are a new elementary principal please come to this informal breakfast to meet AWSA staff and other new and 8:30 AM Welcome & Opening Keynote
10:00 AM Break and Opening of Expo Hall 10:20-11:00 AM Keynote Continues (with time for questions, challenges and success stories) 11:15-12:00 PM Luncheon and Elementary Principal of the Year Award 12:00-12:25 PM Dessert with Exhibitors
1. Fostering Resilient Learners: Strategies for Creating a Trauma-Sensitive Classroom Kristin Souers and Pete Hall’s "Fostering Resilient Learners: Strategies for Creating a Trauma-Sensitive Classroom" is an invaluable resource for educators navigating the complexities of childhood trauma in the classroom. Join us as we discover practical strategies grounded in both research and real-world experience. This session will help you cultivate a trauma-sensitive learning environment for students across all content areas, grade levels, and educational settings. 2. Markers of a Coaching Culture Does your school have a culture of feedback? Are teachers hungry to sit with another colleague and talk about their successes, their blunders, and their impact? This session will allow participants to reflect on and consider ways to assess the markers of a coaching culture in the school and identify ways to ensure it is a place where people of all ages thrive on trust and feedback. 3. Becoming a High-Performance Culture for All Students: Collecting and Monitoring Instructional Practice Data
For over a decade, I have asked scores of leaders (representing hundreds of Wisconsin schools and districts) to engage in a five-minute survey that identifies the degree to which ten attributes of a high-performance culture describes their school. On 90% or more of the occasions, leaders identify their biggest gap as this one: “My school routinely collects and shares data on adult practices to ensure deep implementation of specific strategies and to support all adults toward improving student learning.” The good news: in the past few years, we have evidence of more Wisconsin schools than ever who are addressing this gap and, thus, making encouraging progress on student growth and learning. In this session, we will share Wisconsin-based approaches and examples for addressing this nearly universal challenge so that you can leave with the next steps for closing these gaps in your school’s performance culture and levels of student learning. 4. The Power of Intentional Scheduling Join us for a dynamic presentation on developing grade-level schedules tailored to prioritize students’ diverse learning needs for optimal growth. Discover practical strategies, samples, and principles for creating flexible, data-driven schedules that foster collaboration and differentiation. Learn how to integrate support services effectively and continuously monitor and adjust schedules to ensure every student thrives. 5. Moving the Needle: Small Steps to Create Big Opportunities "Moving the Needle" is a dynamic session tailored for PK-12 educators seeking impactful strategies to drive positive change in their schools and districts. By focusing on incremental yet transformative actions, this event empowers educators to enhance professional capacity, refine hiring practices, nurture leadership, and promote goal setting and reflection. Attendees will leave with concrete examples of tried-and-true practices employed by our districts. 6. Supporting Early Literacy in Wisconsin: Where Are We Now?
Barb Novak, Director, Wisconsin Office of Literacy, Office of the State Superintendent
1:45-2:15 PM Break with Exhibitors 2:15-3:30 PM Concurrent Sessions Round Two 1. Building Leaders from Within Step into a transformative conference session tailored for principals: "Building Leaders from Within." Are you feeling the weight of your workload bearing down, drowning in endless tasks and stress? Discover innovative strategies to cultivate leadership within your team, lightening your load and reducing stress levels. Uncover the power of nurturing leadership potential from within your staff, empowering them to share responsibilities and lift the burden of overwhelming workloads. Join us on this journey toward a more balanced and effective leadership approach. 2. Defining Instructional Identity: Empowering Principals to Foster High-Expertise Teaching and Learning In this thought-provoking session, we delve into the fundamental question: "Does my school have an instructional identity?" Principals are pivotal leaders in shaping the educational culture of their schools, and understanding and cultivating a distinct instructional identity is essential for success. Through interactive discussions and practical insights, attendees will explore strategies to identify, define, and refine their school's instructional identity. Moreover, we will delve into the critical role of high-expertise teaching and learning in closing academic gaps and enhancing overall outcomes. Participants will leave empowered with actionable approaches to strengthen their school's instructional identity and drive continuous improvement in teaching and learning practices. 3. Leading Literacy as an Administrator
Jessica D’Ambrosio, Principal, Amery Intermediate School Leadership plays a critical role in developing educators and ensuring students have exposure to best practices and the tools to become good readers. Through meaningful professional development that aligns with ACT 20 and the Science of Reading, we can grow our educators. Leaders must understand science based early learning instruction and how to implement universal and intervention instruction that is systematic and explicit. This session will focus on how we support and develop literacy instructors, develop a framework to evaluate data to implement response to intervention, and provide equitable student access to tiered instruction.
4. Rhetoric Reality Gap: Changing our Commitments
Tammy Gibbons, Director of Professional Learning, AWSA
Schools could make a long list of reasons they are not successful for ALL students. But the truth of the matter is, that there is often a gap - the difference between what we say are our priorities and what our behavior says about our priorities. This session will focus on how to lead a school through a process of identifying commitments (norms) that lead to a high-performing culture and further identifying the need for healthy conflict in order to socialize those commitments in all spaces, whether the leader is present or not. 5. Managing the Unmanageable: How to Deal with Increased Stress in Schools Recent studies have shown that it has never been more stressful to be an educator than it has over the past two years. Teacher burnout is at an all time high. So many of our stressors are out of our control (pandemic, lack of subs, increased student issues) but we can control how we manage our increased stress load. During this presentation you will learn how stress is stored in the body and evidence based ways to release it. During this training participants will learn: 1) how stress gets stored in the body, 2) evidence-based practices that complete the stress cycle, and, 3) how to make an individualized stress management plan that meets the needs of each person.
4:30-5:30 PM Reception Sponsored by Friday | October 11, 20247:00-8:00 AM Fellowship Breakfast (Optional) School administrators support the boundless needs of those they lead and serve. But who supports them -- especially in ways tending to the heart and spirit? Join AWSA’s Associate Executive Director, Joe Schroeder, and administrative colleagues from across the state in this Christian fellowship breakfast option that, now in its eighth year, is proving for many to be an annual highlight of encouragement and assistance for the next leg of the leadership and life journey. This year's reflection will be led by Dana Eide, principal of Spence Elementary School in La Crosse, on the theme of how the blessing of working with children deepens our faith and servant leadership journey. (Please note: we will adjourn the fellowship breakfast in time to attend the Legislative Update Session in full that will follow this breakfast next door.) 8:00-8:45 AM Breakfast Program & Legislative Update AWSA and the School Administrators Alliance's Executive Director, Dee Pettack, will provide an update on issues of most importance to elementary school leaders. 9:00-10:15 AM Concurrent Sessions Round Three 1. Bench Warmers or Bench Leaders? You Can Decide Change is currently the top challenge for school organizations and today’s leaders. This requires a thorough understanding of the changing conditions organizations encounter and how to respond effectively. Leaders need to be able to cultivate leadership teams that, in Leigh Thompson's words, “go through the various storms, the successes, the failures and keep coming out alive.” This session will have participants consider the many strategies that leaders may have adopted to improve teamwork; while well-intentioned, they are not all that effective, but there are some solid recommendations that can be readily implemented. 2. Accelerating Impact: You as a 100-Day Leader It has been commonplace in education for decades to say that systemic change is a 3-5 year process. But we now know that change can happen much more rapidly – and, in fact, is typically the product of a series of robust, short cycles of progress. This session will leverage the work of thought leaders such as Michael Fullan and Doug Reeves, as well as examples from principals across Wisconsin, to help you conceptualize a 100-day challenge, identify entry points, and develop means for interventions that render clear results. In short, participants will leave the session with concrete approaches they can apply to become impactful, 100-day leaders by taking deliberate action of short-cycle impact. 3. Navigating Tough Conversations: Implementing the RESIST Protocol for Accountability and Student Success Join us for an enlightening session tailored for principals seeking guidance on facilitating difficult conversations essential for accountability and student success. Inspired by the RESIST Protocol developed by Anthony Muhammad and Luis Cruz, this workshop equips participants with practical steps to address challenging situations effectively. Through interactive exercises and role-playing scenarios, attendees will learn how to navigate crucial conversations with confidence and empathy. Gain invaluable insights into fostering a culture of accountability while ensuring that practices align with student needs and aspirations. Leave prepared and empowered to engage in meaningful dialogue that propels your school towards greater equity, excellence, and student persistence. 4. Filling the Jar: A Principal’s Guide to Teacher Resilience Caring for your staff using tried and true tested examples as well as ideas from Aguilar. Principals will walk away with various ways activities and ideas to fill your staff’s buckets. Practical ideas to take back and use with your staff. This will include modeling activities that will be good for your soul. 5. Identifying and Supporting Dysregulated Students Increased mental health challenges are putting additional stress on school staff and students. During this presentation we are going to learn how to maximize the resources in our school to support these students. During this training participants will learn classroom interventions to support dysregulated students, school wide supports designed to support students, and student coping strategies that increase regulation and learning. 10:15-10:30 AM Break 10:30 AM Closing Keynote
Vendor Information
Tabletop fee is $400 and includes: 1 8’ table, 2 chairs, lunch, dessert break, pre-registrants list one week prior to the event. If you are a vendor who has questions about the event or would like to be put on the waitlist for 2024 please contact Katie Lowe. Each year AWSA's Elementary Principals Convention brings in hundreds of administrators from across the state of Wisconsin. Vendors will have the opportunity to engage in unique face-to-face interactions throughout the convention. Event Cancellation or Postponement Conventions, Conferences, and Workshop Cancellation Policy Dietary Disclaimer Accessibility *Refund fees retained by AWSA pay for your food guarantees, a/v equipment, meeting room rental and any hotel attritions caused by the cancellation. |
Be Their Hero: Trauma Informed Care