Attorneys Bob Butler and Malina Piontek will cover an area  secondary principals  deal with on a daily basis: student discipline. The presentation will  focus on tips for experienced secondary administrators when taking a student expulsion case to the school board, and suggestions on how to avoid having an expulsion decision overturned if appealed. AWSA members attending this session will receive an Expulsion Overview Guide with sample notifications and hearing procedures. Finally, in this plenary session, Bob and Malina will provide updates on any hot legal issues that principals need to know.

Building-level administrators are often on the front lines when dealing with the challenges posed by technology.  Rapid technological development, especially generative AI, has created unique legal challenges for building administrators to navigate.  Attorney Brian Goodman will help break down these legal issues, including issues involving plagiarism, AI-generated inappropriate images, “deep fakes,” false social media pages created by students to impersonate teachers and administrators, and more.  This session will also include several hypothetical scenarios so administrators can work through some examples as a group.

The 2024 presidential election is in the rearview mirror. The battle continues to wage on in federal courts. Where do things stand with respect to the 2024 Title IX regulations and case law applicable to LGBTQIA+ considerations? This session will provide updates as to the status of Title IX, as well as provide practical guidance to assist you in charting the course for your district for the remainder of the 2024-2025 school year.

Navigating the maze of Special Education and Section 504 can be tricky for school district administrators, especially when they are called to step into contentious IEP meetings, respond to angry parents, calm staff tensions, and assess requests for accommodations.  Join Tess O’Brien-Heinzen as she walks through a basic primer of the laws applicable to students with disabilities and provides strategies for legal compliance with respect to the hottest special education and Section 504 topics, including discipline, seclusion and restraint, staff shortages, service animals, and accommodations for issues related to mental health including anxiety and depression.  Administrators should come prepared to participate in a robust discussion that will leave them feeling prepared to handle even the toughest issues ahead.

2. Boosting Morale: Effective Approaches to Staff Engagement
Anthony Pizzo, Assistant Superintendent and Katie Spadoni, Principal, Pewaukee School District

In this breakout session, discover simple, yet effective strategies to invigorate your team and foster a positive work environment. We will explore creative and effective methods to boost morale, enhance communication, and build a culture of engagement and collaboration. Join us to learn how to implement these innovative approaches and transform your workplace into a dynamic and motivated community. You'll leave with actionable insights and tools to drive staff engagement and achieve organizational success.

Joe Schroeder, Associate Executive Director, AWSA

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.

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.

1. Blueprints for Success: Building Your Building Leadership Team

Julie Skelton, Principal, Kewaskum Middle School 

Join us at the "Blueprints for Success: Building Your Building Leadership Team" conference session, where we delve into strategies for fostering growth and capacity within your team. Learn how to cultivate a cohesive leadership unit, set actionable goals, and effectively utilize them as guiding principles throughout the year. Discover the tools and techniques necessary to empower your team to reach new heights of effectiveness and impact. Don't miss this opportunity to construct a solid foundation for leadership excellence within your organization.   

This session is tailored for principals seeking effective strategies to address Tier 2 behaviors through a culturally responsive lens. By fostering inclusive problem-solving approaches, educators can create supportive environments that empower both students and staff. Join us as we explore practical techniques for forming powerful teams dedicated to supporting student and educator success. Through examples, case studies, and discussions, participants will gain insights into reducing disciplinary incidents and the need for intensive supports.

“There will be no sustainable improvement in student results and no elimination of the achievement gap until leaders and teachers succeed in building a particular organizational culture.” This powerful, research-based statement by Jon Saphier of Research for Better Teaching, Inc. (RBT) describes the 12 Visible Practices of a Strong Adult Professional Culture, two of which include public teaching and non-defensive self-examination of teaching practice in relation to student results. This session will connect such research with examples of Wisconsin schools that are growing these practices deliberately so that professional learning is gaining traction and deepening impact on student learning at impressive levels – and cultivating a strong adult professional culture in the process. You will leave this session with a vision and pathway for potential next steps of related action in your school.

5. Tools and Tips for Communicating in Turbulent Times
Brian Nicol, Partner, Donovan Group

To say that we are living through a time of great change and political turbulence is an understatement. Despite the challenges of our time, we all know that effectively engaging students, staff, parents, and other stakeholders is vital for principals. How do we meaningfully create two-way conversations with our audiences that lead to authentic engagement and build trust? In this session on a timeless topic reprised from last year upon request, former teacher and administrator Brian Nicol will introduce a process and set of tools to thoughtfully engage all stakeholders. Participants are encouraged to bring their communications issues and questions to the session. 

6. Student Cell Phones: How to Clearly and Effectively Set Your Students and Staff Up for a Better Learning Environment
Dan Marien, Principal, Northland Pines Middle and High School and Jill Lybert, Principal, Medford Senior High School

Cell phones have become one of the biggest challenges in schools today, posing both distractions and disruptions for teachers and administrators.  In this session, we will share how two schools became cell phone-free, each taking a different path to achieve success.    You'll learn how to clearly inform and educate your students and families on what is occurring in your building, what you've observed over the past few years, and what you envision for the future of your school.     By involving families and students in the process, you'll be able to reduce resistance and foster understanding when key decisions are made by building or district administration. Be ready to learn and share as we tackle this pressing question: "Should we continue trying to educate our students on how and when to appropriately use their cell phones, or is it time to ban them altogether?"

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. Please note: We will adjourn the fellowship breakfast in time to attend the Legislative Update Session in full that will follow this breakfast.

For over a decade, AWSA has been building an array of team-centered and individual leadership academies and networks, often with coaching support, to build high-impact learning leaders across Wisconsin.  This session will provide an update about the results of these efforts to date amid a host of challenges and barriers.  Before concluding, we seek your individual and collective input regarding current realities and next steps for AWSA's professional learning, which members have consistently conveyed is the most important and valued of AWSA supports.

1. Moving the Needle: Small Steps to Create Big Opportunities

Tom Sauve, Principal, Elmwood School District & Megan Challoner, Principal, Frederic School District

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.

2. Navigating Tough Conversations: Implementing the RESIST Protocol for Accountability and Student Success

Yaribel Rodriguez, Director of Urban Leadership, AWSA

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.

3. Becoming a High-Performance Culture for All Students: Collecting and Monitoring Instructional Practice Data
Joe Schroeder, Associate Executive Director, AWSA

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 next steps for closing these gaps in your school’s performance culture and levels of student learning.

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.

The social and systems intelligences required to be an effective school leader are not only varied and complex, they are further nuanced by the local context of the school community in which a leader finds themself.  Culture matters and is often interconnected with systems and traditions that have been built over time. Leading for equity requires a keen eye to the challenges outlined in Lewis and Diamond’s Despite the Best Intentions.   A process and commitment for detracking, an understanding of the resources that can be leveraged, a consistent UBD model for equitable classroom instruction and grading, the elimination of sacred cows, and the importance of recognizing and navigating the opportunity hoarding that arises in times of change will be talking points of this session. Participants will leave with an understanding of how to identify and prioritize areas of need, pitfalls to be avoided, and the importance of having allies in this work.