Dr. Bill Daggett

Learning 2025: Preparing Students for Their Future, NOT Our Past 

Equity, social justice, Social-Emotional Learning, mental health, and a rigorous and relevant instructional program for all students are recent but critical issues that schools today are required to address. Meanwhile, the demands of the past have not gone away. The brick-and-mortar school model of the last century with the bell schedule, boundaries, rules, regulations, certifications, tenures, contracts, and a hyper-focus on meeting proficiency on high-stakes tests continue to demand attention. While the demands continue to compound, a silver lining is emerging through the hardships brought on by COVID. It has created a tipping point for many educators, policy makers, business leaders, and parents around the immediate need to transform our education system. The pandemic has also taught us that change is possible in the ways we had not imagined even one year ago. 

Dr. Bill Daggett will share emerging solutions to these challenges. He is co-chairing a National Commission named “Learning 2025: National Commission on Student-centered, Equity-focused Education” with AASA, in cooperation with several other national organizations including NSBA, CCSSO, NASSP, and NESPA. The National Commission’s charge will be to identify and document the cognitive and non-cognitive skills, knowledge, behaviors, and dispositions that high school graduates will need to master to prepare for the digital age workplace as citizens of a global community. Dr. Daggett will share with participating schools and districts the evidence-based practices that have been found to be most effective at addressing the multiple challenges and demands that they face. He will explain how those practices begin by putting a stake in the ground for the class of 2025 by identifying what graduating seniors will need to know, do, and how to behave to be successful in a world that is being transformed rapidly by advancing technologies such as AI. Education leaders will learn how to develop and, ultimately, be able to implement Boardroom-to-Classroom policies and practices that will transform schools and classrooms to best prepare all students for their future and not our past. 

Charles Duhigg

Charles Duhigg is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and the author of The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better. A graduate of Harvard Business School and Yale College, he is a winner of the National Academies of Sciences, National Journalism, and George Polk awards.

He writes for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and other publications, and is the host of the podcast “How To! with Charles Duhigg.” Charles’ science-based insights on human nature and its potential align perfectly with the goals of the DA Leadership Institute — to help you most effectively carry out all your roles: manager, leader, advocate and agent of change.

Dr. Peter Gorman

Dr. Peter Gorman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Peter Gorman Leadership Associates LLC, has been recognized nationally as an education leader and for developing outstanding leadership teams with more than 25 years of experience in education and business. He is the author of the book “Leading a School District Requires Clarity, Context, and Candor: An Aligned System to Increase Student Achievement at Scale” and contributing editor of “Board & Administrator” writing the lead column monthly. Along with his responsibilities at Peter Gorman Leadership Associates, Dr. Gorman is Superintendent in residence with the District Administration Leadership Institute where he serves as the Managing Director of the National Superintendents Academy delivering intensive instruction on the academic, political, legal and logistical complexities, and the demanding realities, confronting school leaders today. He is also Chief in residence with Chiefs For Change guiding the Future Chiefs program working to build a pipeline of “Future Chiefs” for states and districts.

Dr. Gorman’s career began as a second-grade teacher in Orlando, Florida. He worked as a teacher, principal, and district-level administrator in Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties in Florida before becoming superintendent of schools in Tustin, California. In 2006, Dr. Gorman became superintendent of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in North Carolina. Under his leadership, the district won the 2011 Broad Prize in Urban Education, which recognizes increases in student achievement and closing of achievement gaps. Twenty members of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Leadership Team during his tenure have been appointed as superintendents nationally. The book “Within Reach, Leadership Lessons in School Reform” chronicles his time with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and four other books reviewed aspects of his tenure along with numerous articles, research studies, and case studies. He then transitioned to the corporate world working as Executive Vice President of Education Services for Amplify, a division of News Corp, leading nearly 100 team members in the Government Relations, Marketing and Sales areas.

Michael Moore

Michael Moore spent 30 years as a teacher, principal and superintendent. Since 2006 he has specialized in leadership development, serving as CAO for the nation’s largest principal preparation program, launching new principal-supervision models and building principal pipelines in several large districts, and creating coaching models for non-profits and charter management organizations. As an executive coach, Michael works with CEOs and their leadership teams in a variety of districts, charter organizations and companies.

Successful Change from the Ground Up

District leaders are judged by their ability to manage large-scale change, yet they have only indirect influence with teachers and principals. Having a clear vision and solid plan is just the beginning to changing skills and beliefs at the school level. In this session, you and your colleagues will practice improving your influence with teachers and principals and building momentum for successful implementation of the new changes. You’ll leave with a planning guide and hands-on tools.

Wes Moore

We are thrilled to announce that Wes Moore will be our key-note speaker. He is a New York Times best-selling author, army veteran, youth advocate and CEO of Robin Hood. Based in New York, Robin Hood is one of the largest anti-poverty organizations in our nation helping to dismantle systematic poverty. Wes passionately believes that the ‘expectation gap’ is our society’s largest hinderance in helping youth succeed. He continues to empower leaders to create mobility and opportunity for ALL students in their communities.  

Wes Moore is the CEO of Robin Hood, one of the largest antipoverty nonprofits in the country. He is a bestselling author, a combat veteran, and a social entrepreneur. His first book, The Other Wes Moore, was a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller; his second book, The Work, was also a bestseller and featured in Oprah’s SuperSoul Sunday. He lives in his hometown of Baltimore with his wife and two children.

Make the Most of Your Time With Principals

When school leaders dig into student achievement results, they begin with basic questions: Do the lesson plans address the academic standards? Are the instructional practices effective?  How is progress being tracked? Teachers are expected to plan well, differentiate instruction and track student progress. What if we took the same approach to developing principals and focused on better planning of their time together? 

Lenny Schad

Lenny Schad is the chief information and innovation officer for District Administration. Schad has been working in the technology field for 28 years where his career has taken him into many business sectors, and he has established a very successful leadership and management track record. His range of business-sector experience includes hospitality, government, oil and gas, investment banking, and education.

Highlights of his career include managing and leading technology departments for the 1991 Economic Summit of Industrialized Nations and the 1992 Republican National Convention, and creating and managing technology departments for joint ventures and global organizations. Schad has worked in K12 education since 2003, and has successfully led implementations of BYOD and 1-to-1 in Katy ISD and Houston ISD, respectively. He is a board member for CoSN and IMS Global, and is a recognized leader whose innovative and process-oriented management styles have led to highly effective information technology departments.

The Changing Role of the CIO

The leaders of technology divisions must begin thinking of their role not in terms of providing “Technology Solutions” rather, they need to think of their role as being part of the “Classroom Experience.” As a technology leader you must face a new reality; because of the many cloud-based and digital service offerings, the organization can build their own solutions without you and your department. In order to avoid this CIO’s need to focus their time and energy on building relationships at every level in the organization. By establishing relationships and partnering with other leaders the technology department becomes the enabler to accomplishing the objectives in this changing landscape.