Leadership EDIT 2026

Participants will learn how schools move through experience phases—recovery, stability, and belonging—and why culture and equity efforts stall when foundational conditions are missing. Attendees will identify indicators of each phase and examine how communication clarity, system consistency, and leadership behaviors shape psychological safety.
The session is highly interactive, beginning with a brief self-reflection to help participants locate their school’s current experience phase, followed by small-group dialogue to surface patterns and insights across contexts. Guided discussion will encourage peer learning and normalize shared challenges.
Participants will leave with one concrete action to strengthen stability in their setting and a simple reflection tool to continue evaluating experience conditions after the summit, extending learning beyond the session into daily leadership practice.

A poet once asked, “How does the seed reveal the tree, but yet conceal all that it will ever be?” In this session, participants will practice radical empathy by recognizing and questioning deficit-based thinking to reframe how they talk about and work with students, staff, and their community. Participants will identify and define their own core values and brainstorm ways they model them in their work through the filters of their personally inherent, acquired, and organizational traits. The facilitator will present a 4-prong strategy to focus on the potential in students, staff and community – reflect, recognize, reframe, and respond.

In this session, we will share the journey of transforming school culture at two alternative sites, a juvenile detention center and a mental health facility, by centering learning on curiosity, student agency, and critical thinking. In settings where students often feel powerless, we have discovered that shifting ownership of learning from teacher to student builds engagement, resilience, and ultimately, hope.Participants will: (1) explore practical ways to increase student agency and curiosity in any classroom; (2) examine structures that shift thinking and problem-solving to students; and (3) consider how student agency, curiosity, and critical thinking serve as a foundation for hope, especially for vulnerable learners.Through reflection protocols, real examples from our sites, and collaborative discussion, we will model the strategies we use with students. Although our work is rooted in alternative settings, these practices readily transfer to traditional schools and can strengthen culture, engagement, and student thinking in any learning environment.

 Form_Responses  In this session, we’ll seek to transform approaches to student outcomes by unlocking the full potential of the school counselor partnership. We’ll move beyond barriers to explore practical collaborative strategies across Tiers 1, 2, and 3. Through small-group scenario analysis and whole-group discussions, participants will identify productive interventions, with a specific focus on supporting students impacted by trauma. Focusing on a long-term impact, participants will not only discuss ideas, but build a concrete action plan to implement these connections. Let’s co-create a sustainable framework for student support that extends beyond the session, ensuring no student falls through an achievement gap.

In this interactive session, two KCKPS high school principals, Dr. Williams and Dr. Franco, alongside district administrators Mr. Collins and Dr. Lucero, will share how they’ve worked together to strengthen community partnerships to create leadership opportunities for students who may not be traditionally engaged. This work serves as strategic violence prevention, anti-bullying, and restorative conflict measures. It expands leadership skillset, builds protective relationships, and equips students with tools to positively influence peers and resolve conflict. When students who might otherwise disengage find belonging and purpose, school safety and community well-being improve.Attendees will learn practical next steps to build existing and new partnerships. Through real examples and guided discussion, participants will explore how to adapt these strategies from Early Childhood through Secondary and leave with clear next steps for their school plans.