View Wednesday Breakout Sessions

9:40–10:30 AM Breakout Sessions

Session Title: Self-Leadership: How Teachers Reclaim Their Power and Purpose

Presenter: Jermaine Shakespeare

Strand: Transformational Leadership and Systems Change

Description: Empower teachers to reclaim their purpose through self-leadership. This session offers practical strategies to shift mindset, lead with intention, and make a greater impact on students and school culture.

Session Title: Disrupting the School-to-Prison Pipeline: A Public Health Approach to Equity and Prevention

Presenter: Dr. Pamela Sacks-Lawlar

Strand: Culturally Responsive Practices that Advances Academic Achievement

Description: Using a public health framework, this session examines the epidemiology of the School-to-Prison Pipeline, including root causes, risk factors, and long-term outcomes such as trauma, academic disruption, and reduced life opportunities

Session Title: EconReads: Bringing Economics to Life Through Children’s Literature

Presenter: Ms. Donna Dempsey

Strand: Early Learning Foundations

Description: EconReads uses children’s literature and hands-on activities to teach K–5 students economics and personal finance. Educators will gain ready-to-use, standards-aligned lessons and strategies to connect literacy with financial learning in engaging ways.

Session Title: What Students Carry: Partnering with Families to Support the Whole Child

Presenter: Mrs. Kylah Seabrooks

Strand: Community and Family Partnerships

Description: Explore how to build strong family partnerships, strengthen communication, and create culturally responsive environments that support the whole child. Gain strategies to build trust and strengthen school-home connections

10:40–11:30 AM Breakout Sessions

Session Title: Is Your Coaching Program Delivering Results?

Presenter: Dr. Ildi Laczko-Kerr

Strand: Transformational Leadership and Systems Change

Description: Unsure whether your instructional coaching is working? This interactive session shows you how to evaluate impact, gather meaningful qualitative and quantitative data, and align coaching to your goals so your investment delivers real results

Session Title: From Misread to Empowered: Seeing the Student Behind the Behavior

Presenter: Dr. LeTron Alexander

Strand: Culturally Responsive Practices that Advances Academic Achievement

Description: This session equips educators and leaders with practical, culturally responsive, trauma-informed strategies for understanding student behavior and responding in ways that strengthen connection, engagement, and success.

Session Title: Unlocking the Joy of Writing: Proven Strategies to Inspire Reluctant Writers

Presenter: Mr. Adam Laningham

Strand: Culturally Responsive Practices that Advances Academic Achievement

Description: Many students struggle with writing as both a skill and an emotional task. This session provides tools to reduce anxiety, strengthen resilience, and create supportive, process‑centered classrooms that help all learners grow.

Session Title: What Students Carry: Partnering with Families to Support the Whole Child

Presenter: Dr. Bisi Alli

Strand: Community and Family Partnerships

1:30–2:20 PM Breakout Sessions

Session Title: Perception and Perspective: Does Your Reality Need A Reality Check?

Presenter: Prof. Rico McCoy Burton

Strand: Educator Leadership and Growth

Description: A fast‑paced session that shows how perception shapes our reality and influences our interactions and relationships, with practical strategies to reflect, reframe, and reset when assumptions lead us off track.

Session Title: I Am Because We Are: Centering Black Student Voice Through StoryShare

Presenter: Cecilia Abarca & Amaya Ravenell

Strand: Collaborative and Student-Centered Learning

Description: Step into StoryShare, an interactive literacy model centering student voice through writing and performance. A replicable model implemented with middle-grade Black students at Utterback Middle School in partnership with the University of Arizona.

Session Title: The Most Dangerous Word in Education Isn’t Failure. It’s Potential.

Presenter: Dr. Ovett Chapman

Strand: Culturally Responsive Practices that Advances Academic Achievement

Description: “You have so much potential.” We say it all the time. But what if it delays support for Black students? This session challenges that phrase and gives educators practical tools to change what students receive now.

Session Title: Keeping Our Voice: Culturally Responsive Teaching in the AI Era

Presenter: Dr. Ann Williamson

Strand: Culturally Responsive Practices that Advances Academic Achievement

Description: Explore how to use AI to support instruction while preserving culturally responsive teaching, educator voice, and student identity. This session offers practical strategies to integrate innovation without losing the human and cultural essence of teaching

2:30–3:20 PM Breakout Sessions

Session Title: Ditch the To-Do List: Build Your To-Be List for Real Impact

Presenter: Ms. Kathi Kulesza

Strand: Educator Leadership and Growth

Description: Move beyond the relentless to-do list and discover how intentional, “to-be” leadership transforms visibility, confidence, and impact. This breakout gives Black educators and aspiring leaders the frameworks and action steps to lead unapologetically.

Session Title: Black Children Deserve More Than Survival: Reimagining Schools as Places of Belonging, Brilliance, and Liberation

Presenter: Rev LaShauna Austria, Karinda Robuck & Mtende Roll

Strand: Transformational Leadership and Systems Change

Description: Black children deserve schools that honor their identity, cultivate their brilliance, and support their full humanity. This interactive session invites educators, leaders, nonprofit partners, and community advocates to reflect, regroup, and reimagine.

Session Title: Keeping Our Voice: Culturally Responsive Teaching in the AI Era

Presenter: Cedric Collins & Berdetta Hodge

Strand: Community and Family Partnerships

Description: The presentation explores key elements of effective partnerships, including open communication, mutual respect, and cultural responsiveness.

Session Title: When Students See Themselves: Identity‑Affirming Practices for Success

Presenter: Christopher Blane

Strand: Culturally Responsive Practices that Advances Academic Achievement

Description: Learning begins with students’ lived experiences. This session explores identity‑affirming practices like storytelling and prior knowledge activation that connect content to reality, build belonging, and empower all learners to succeed.

View Wednesday Breakout Sessions

View Wednesday Breakout Sessions

9:40–10:30 AM Breakout Sessions

10:40–11:30 AM Breakout Sessions

1:30–2:20 PM Breakout Sessions

2:30–3:20 PM Breakout Sessions

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