Schedule At A Glance

The focus on student achievement should always start with climate and culture. When a district and the schools within it have a positive climate and culture, student acheivement goes hand in hand with those characteristics. Test scores do not change climate and culture. Climate and culture changes test scores. Gerry uses his videos to develop a strategy for making the workplace a pleasant place where faculty, administrators, and support staff all maintain mutual respect, regardless of personal differences, resulting in more efficient and fulfilled workers. Gerry will share policies that he had incorporated that promote a healthy respectful working relationship even when opinions differ. He will also share ideas that maximize opportunities to get to know staff members and create comaraderie, taking advantage of 15 seconds here and there throughout the day. Gerry will inspire educators with personal stories to remind them of the reason they endure the trials of working in education today. Attendees will leave refreshed and encouraged. 

This session will stroll through landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions that have shaped special education law.  For each major legal question the Court answered, we will review the facts of each case, summarize the Court's holding, and discussed what happened next.  The goal of this session is to review how we got to where we are on important special education legal issues and what we learned from these decisions that the statute did not tell us.

School districts increasingly rely on paraeducators to support students with disabilities, yet professional learning opportunities for this critical workforce are often inconsistent, limited, or poorly aligned with job responsibilities. Administrators frequently struggle to design training systems that are relevant, sustainable, and responsive to district needs. This session shares lessons learned from developing and delivering paraeducator professional learning across multiple districts and regional programs. Participants will explore common challenges in paraeducator training, including scheduling constraints, onboarding new staff, and ensuring relevance to classroom roles. The session introduces a practical planning framework designed to help administrators create systematic, thoughtful professional learning opportunities for paraeducators. Participants will examine a professional learning planning worksheet that guides leaders through identifying priorities, establishing learning objectives, selecting training formats, and documenting impact. Participants will leave with a tool they can use to plan and improve paraeducator professional learning in their districts.

Special education leaders operate in environments that demand constant decision making, regulatory oversight, and ongoing support for students, families, and multidisciplinary teams. The pressure to meet these demands often creates a culture where exhaustion becomes normalized and burnout is viewed as an unavoidable part of leadership. This session challenges the belief that overwork equals dedication. Dr. Renee Sunday shares practical strategies that help special education leaders recognize early indicators of burnout, strengthen support for their teams, and restore leadership capacity in high-demand environments. Drawing from experience in healthcare and leadership consulting, the session provides actionable approaches that help leaders improve communication, reduce team overload, and strengthen staff retention. Participants leave with practical tools that support resilient teams, sustainable leadership practices, and healthier professional environments for special education staff.

Guided by its commitment that Every Student Graduates a Reader, Lake Pend Oreille School District strengthened literacy outcomes for students with intensive reading needs through a targeted instructional framework and high-quality special education intervention groups. In partnership with Pathways to Reading, district leaders implemented a structured approach that emphasized explicit instruction, consistent routines, and distributed practice to support long-term skill mastery and reading success. Through the strategic implementation of Pathways to Reading, a comprehensive and research-aligned foundational literacy program, the district established a systematic model for teaching phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, and comprehension. Particular focus was placed on special education intervention settings, where shared instructional language, clear skill progressions, and predictable routines improved instructional precision and student engagement. In this session, presenters will share how the district aligned instructional practices across schools, supported educator implementation through professional learning and coaching, and monitored outcomes to ensure fidelity and effectiveness. Participants will explore practical examples of instructional routines, tools used to support implementation, and lessons learned throughout the process. Attendees will leave with actionable strategies and implementation insights they can adapt within their own schools or districts to strengthen literacy instruction and improve outcomes for students with intensive reading needs.

Special educator shortages continue to challenge districts across the country, making retention more critical than ever. While many leaders focus on recruitment, improving day-to-day working conditions is often the most powerful strategy for keeping strong educators in the field. In this session, Angie Balsley and Nate Levenon will share four practical, systems-based strategies that special education leaders can implement to improve job satisfaction and sustain their teams based on interviews with nearly 10,000 special educators across 400 plus districts in 30 states. Participants will explore approaches such as allowing special educators to play to their strengths and specialize, methods to streamline meetings and paperwork, smarter, fairer workload assignments, and better building based support. The session will also highlight leadership practices that strengthen trust, clarity, and professional agency. Attendees will leave with actionable strategies to build sustainable systems where special educators can thrive and stay. We will highlight district case studies where staff morale moved from bleak to energized through these strategies.

Special education leaders are often asked to balance compliance demands with increasingly complex student needs while staff burnout and ineffective behavior systems continue to rise. This session explores how districts can shift from reactive, behavior-focused models toward neuro-affirming, regulation-centered systems that improve outcomes for both students and staff. Drawing from classroom practice, policy analysis, and systems-level leadership work, participants examine common practices that unintentionally escalate behavior and inequity. The session introduces practical frameworks for redesigning supports that prioritize nervous system regulation, communication access, and student dignity without sacrificing accountability. Attendees leave with concrete strategies leaders can implement at the campus or district level to align compliance, equity, and sustainable practice. This session is designed for administrators seeking actionable change; not another checklist—while navigating the real constraints of special education leadership.

Special education leadership often feels like a balancing act between compliance and relationship-building. In this session, leaders from the Special Education Resolution Center (SERC), The Oklahoma Parent’s Center (OPC)), the Oklahoma State Dept of Special Education, and three districts selected for Oklahoma’s inaugural CADRE Workgroup Pilot- Duncan Public Schools, Noble Public Schools, and McAlester Public Schools —share a roadmap for transforming district-level dispute resolution. Participants will explore how a multi-year partnership between the state department, parent centers, and local districts has moved the needle from reactive "firefighting" to proactive, interest-based collaboration. We will dive into the "boots on the ground" implementation of early resolution strategies, including Restorative Practices, Pre-IEP collaborative planning, and data transparency. Attendees will leave with a practical toolkit to assess their own district’s capacity and implement "easy-win" takeaways that preserve parent-school partnerships and keep the focus on student outcomes.

As Artificial Intelligence moves from a novelty to a necessity, Special Education leaders face a critical challenge: How do we leverage AI’s efficiency without compromising FAPE (Free Appropriate Public Education) or FERPA/IDEA data privacy standards? This interactive 60-minute workshop is designed specifically for large-district leaders tasked with scaling AI across complex systems. We will move beyond the "what" of AI and dive into the "how" of legal implementation. Participants will analyze real-world scenarios, from AI-assisted IEP drafting to automated progress monitoring, to identify hidden risk areas like algorithmic bias and "hallucinations" that impact compliance. The session concludes with a blueprint for a scalable, defensible AI governance framework that protects student rights while empowering educators to innovate.