Travis Mackey, SAM Time Change Coach and former SAM Principal
Geneseo, Illinois

"Building a Culture like the Navy Seals" will use strategies used by the Navy Seals to foster a strong, cohesive culture that drives exceptional performance. This session explores the use of sociograms to build a strong culture. Attendees will gain practical insights on how to cultivate an environment that supports both individual growth and collective success.

Myron Franklin, SAM Principal, NAEA Board Member - Region 3
Metro Nashville Public Schools, Tennessee

Attendees will learn how to harness the power of focused leadership to cultivate a positive school culture, to recognize and nurture greatness, and to consistently exceed expectations. Participants will leave with practical strategies and actionable plans to implement these leadership principles effectively in their own educational settings.

Travis Mackey, SAM Time Change Coach and former SAM Principal
Geneseo, Illinois

A title does not make you a leader... discover your purpose and learn how to build leaders within your school! This session addresses athletes, students, teachers and administrators.

Tonya Stoute, SAM District Leader, and Sheila Vlaun, SAM Assistant Principal
Connecticut Technical Education and Career System, Connecticut

Evaluators use TimeTrack to garner data in support of teacher growth, coaching, and feedback-both within and outside of the evaluation process. They also use TimeTrack in support of their own professional growth, either individually or with peers as a professional learning community (PLC).

Kevin Freeman, SAM Time Change Coach and Missouri Leadership Development System Specialist
Missouri State University, Missouri

Are you dreading difficult conversations? Not sure how to tackle tough challenges as a leader? Join us to learn how to navigate difficult conversations in order to address the issue at hand and to maintain a healthy relationship with anyone in your community! Participants will walk away with a toolkit of strategies to help polish their active listening skills, brainstorm solutions, review legal steps, and avoid the emotional drain that can come with difficult conversations.

Tracie Swilley, SAM Principal and 2025 National High School Principal of the Year
Fairfield County School District, South Carolina

Creating the right environment is essential to growth. Oftentimes, when people think of having fun in school, they reference their earlier years of education. However, students must enjoy school at the secondary level, too, in order to thrive. During this session you will learn how we have created a culture and climate conducive to learning at Fairfield Central High School. Attendees will receive strategies that will produce quick wins, as well as ways to allow your staff and students to tap into their passions in a collaborative and supportive environment.

Nathan Roberts, Professor of Educational Leadership and former Dean of the College of Education
University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Louisiana

The teacher shortage is real and perhaps the most important issue facing school leaders today. Learning directly from teachers through quantitative and qualitative (survey, focus groups, and interviews) data about why they are leaving the profession can and should drive your SAM team's efforts to retain your current teachers. Participants will examine the project process, data, and strategies implemented by a large school district to address teacher concerns and ideas to improve working conditions. The session will conclude with a discussion of examples related to how the SAM process and protocols can address the root causes.

Contributors to this project include: Drs. Marietta Adams, Aimee Barber and Amanda Mayeaux.

Janice Marchal, SAM Specialist and Time Change Coach
Dimondale, Michigan

Time Change Coaches will share how they use their data to best meet the needs of their teams and themselves. We will also share our successes and challenges, including strategies that are currently working and/or could possibly work for your situation.

This session is only for SAM Time Change Coaches

Jenn David-Lang, The Main Idea
Brooklyn, New York

Since the pandemic, we have seen lower rates of teacher engagement and higher rates of absenteeism and turnover. We can do something about this.

Learn three systematic strategies to get teachers out of burnout. More than just helping them survive, we can truly help them to thrive and find meaning in their work -- the ingredients needed for them to stay and do their best.

William D. Parker, Principal Matters, LLC. Education Leadership Services
Owasso, Oklahoma

Based on content from William D. Parker's book Principal Matters: The Motivation, Action & Teamwork Needed for School Leaders, participants will explore 8 hats or responsibilities reflecting the importance of decision-making, management, active-listening, accountability, servant-leadership, communication, teamwork, and individual growth. We will also examine the motivations involved in coaching others and practical ways to achieve goals based on the core values necessary for supporting school communities.

Jenn David-Lang, The Main Idea
Brooklyn, New York

What might be happening with the feedback you give to teachers that causes it to fall flat? Changing teacher practice is complex and involves a lot more than carefully wording your feedback or getting your body language right. Learn concrete strategies to give more effective feedback that results in changed practice and improved student learning.

LaVonna Roth, Founder, Speaker, and Consultant at Ignite Your S.H.I.N.E.
St. Petersburg, Florida

Step into a space crafted to uplift and renew, where leadership is defined by actions, not titles. This session brings together women leaders and their essential partners to share, connect, and recharge, recognizing the equal and invaluable role each of you plays in fostering a positive, resilient environment. Embrace this time to feel supported, valued, and re-energized for the impactful work you do every day as a SAMs team.

LaVonna Roth, Founder, Speaker, and Consultant at Ignite Your S.H.I.N.E.
St. Petersburg, Florida

Join this session designed for school leaders and their SAMs, where effective communication becomes a shared strength. Whether speaking in meetings or addressing larger groups, you'll gain the confidence, clarity, and connection needed to make a real impact. With a focus on purpose and mindset, you'll leave prepared to engage and inspire any audience together.

Dave Sechler, SAM Time Change Coach, Specialist, Mentor, and Board Member
Dover, Delaware

Are you new to the SAM process and would like to meet others like you who are learning new ways to help their administrators be more effective? Or are you a veteran SAM in a building where there are no other SAMs to talk to? Or would you just like to expand your network of SAM contacts? If you are any of these, try SAM Speed Dating! In a series of facilitated one-on-one and small group activities based on that other kind of speed dating, you will get to introduce yourself, meet other SAMs, talk about your practice, and learn about how others do the SAM Process. This is NOT a "sit-n-git" session (all activities will be strictly professional and platonic).

Willow Sweeney, National Speaker and Co-founder of Top 20 Training
Saint Paul, Minnesota

Top 20s create a culture that develops the potential of students and colleagues. This session presents four components of a Top 20 culture: 1) help others succeed, 2) communicate that "you matter," 3) honor the absent, and 4) see the problem, own the problem. It also presents a tool for assessing the degree to which these components exist in a culture.

Willow Sweeney, National Speaker and Co-founder of Top 20 Training
Saint Paul, Minnesota

This session focuses on 1) the beliefs people form about themselves from the messages they receive from others when they make a mistake, 2) what keeps people stuck in their comfort zone, and 3) more effective ways of responding to our own mistakes and the mistakes of others.

Kim Marshall, Founder and Author of The Marshall Memo
Boston, Massachusetts

Ideally, teacher teams backwards-plan curriculum units using a good template like Wiggins-McTighe Understanding by Design. But that's a time-consuming process, and too many teachers are planning lessons day-by-day or week-by-week without Big Ideas, Essential Questions, and performance tasks. ChatGPT and other generative AI tools can greatly accelerate the unit planning process, and we'll explore that potential with some specific examples.

Kim Marshall, Founder and Author of The Marshall Memo
Boston, Massachusetts

SAM principals are in classrooms every day, but the follow-up isn't always as effective as it could be. Kim will share his new four-part template for face-to-face feedback conversations, and we'll use a classroom video to practice focusing on specific affirmations, getting the teacher talking about the lesson, deciding on the best "leverage point," and leaving the teacher with actionable next steps that really improve teaching and learning.

Carol Merritt, SAM Mentor, Trainer, and Specialist, and Lewis Gowin, SAM Specialist, Coach, and Trainer
Louisville, Kentucky and Kansas City, Missouri

How do you become a Time Change Coach and work with SAM teams to support their progress? Attendees will learn about the scope of SAMS coaching work, as well as how to apply and what Coaching Training entails.

John Antonetti, Colleagues on Call
Arkansas

How do teachers learn their craft? Unfortunately, most professional development activities for teachers occur without students present. What if, instead, we used the power of our own faculties and classrooms as learning labs for our teachers? John will guide us through the Look2Learning model of learning walks that allows teachers to find the value of current learning tasks and then to leverage the design elements to increase engagement and rigor.

John Antonetti, Colleagues on Call
Arkansas

Teachers spend lots of time looking at student work -- most often to determine the level of student success. But we can also look at student work to determine the rigor and engagement we are planning for our learners. John will share a protocol for leading PLCs and Data Teams in the work of aligning standards, curriculum, and instruction in the design and development of powerful tasks of learning.

John Antonetti, Colleagues on Call
Arkansas

If you ever had the privilege of learning from Paul Bernabei or Andy Hargreaves, you know how both of these educators knew -- and even celebrated -- the role of confusion in learning. While confusion is often seen as a negative in the eyes of both teachers and learners, it is the exact spot where new learning teeters. If we can design learning tasks that hit that sweet spot of connection, schema, and confusion, the moment can lead to curiosity and clarity in the learning targets. Join John as we look at how to plan for the great moments of confusion.

Ken Williams, Author, Speaker, and Consultant at Unfold The Soul, Inc.
Atlanta, Georgia

Junkyard Dogs get academic results with students who make us uncomfortable. How they do it isn't magic; it's mindset, and the missing muzzle keeps them in hunting mode. At the same time, there is no physical profile of a Junkyard Dog; blood type 823 runs through the veins of every dog. Discover how they get transformative results and awaken the junkyard dog inside you.

Ken Williams, Author, Speaker, and Consultant at Unfold The Soul, Inc.
Atlanta, Georgia

Becoming a Junkyard Dog involves unlearning and relearning. It's the process of deprogramming and reprogramming. PityCat culture lives inside our vocabulary, protocols, processes, and paradigms. This session will calibrate your lenses so that you can avoid the destructive seduction of PityCat Culture.

Amanda Forkner, SAM, Nancy Eichner, Director of Assessment and Student Testing, and Mary Bunn, Executive Director of Student Placement
Rochester City School District, NY

We will discuss and share ideas on actively engaging in the SAM Process to improve time management and effectiveness at the Central Office level. Participants are encouraged to share insights, challenges, and successes in a collaborative environment so that everyone can learn and evolve their use of the SAM Process together. We will also explore how to set up and leverage optional descriptors to focus your time and energy on the areas you deem necessary.

Da'Mond T. Holt, PhD, Certified Traumatologist, Brain Health Specialist, and Board-Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner
Tucson, Arizona

This breakout session will discuss how "trauma-informed" is a good starting point. However, trauma-informed is not enough; we need more tools in the toolkit. "Trauma-resilient" is Dr. Holt's new framework to help shift our classrooms from surviving to thriving.

Lucas Held, Change Leadership Collaborative and former Vice President for Communications at The Wallace Foundation
New Haven, Connecticut

Partisan, political polarization has reached record levels in the United States, with disputes over books, curriculum, and gender identity regularly surfacing as a result. Participants will be introduced to a new research-based toolkit designed to help your leadership team succeed when issues are polarized by: a) building a foundation of agreement on vision and values, b) designing a strategy that fits your priorities and context, and c) course correcting when things go awry.

Lucas Held, Change Leadership Collaborative and former Vice President for Communications at The Wallace Foundation
New Haven, Connecticut

Principals are among the most trusted of all school officials, yet increasingly they must grapple with stressed-out teachers, worried parents, and students who have lost faith in their own potential. This session will focus on five techniques to sustain and grow trust: 1) framing your message with the audience in mind, 2) establishing common ground, 3) building a strong argument, 4) avoiding jargon, and 5) listening with the third ear. Participants will have a chance to practice techniques.

Ann Duffy, Principal Consultant at Education First Consulting
Atlanta, Georgia

The 2024 U.S. Presidential Election has concluded, signaling new policies and potential changes in the education landscape. This session will examine the immediate and long-term implications of the election results on educational institutions, policy-making, and funding. Join us as we explore the education platforms of the newly elected administration, analyze changes in federal and state education policies, and discuss their potential impacts on educators, students, and parents. Attendees will gain valuable insights into how these developments could shape the future of education in America, along with strategies for navigating and influencing these changes

Ann Duffy, Principal Consultant at Education First Consulting
Atlanta, Georgia

In an era of rapid educational change, it is imperative to rethink traditional teacher roles to better meet the diverse needs of students. This session will explore innovative approaches to strategic school staffing, focusing on how reimagining and transforming teacher roles can enhance student outcomes. Participants will learn about new models for deploying teachers, differentiated staffing strategies, and the integration of technology to support personalized learning. We will discuss successful case studies, identify best practices, and provide actionable strategies for school leaders to implement in their own contexts.

Tymeerah Grandy, SAM
Baltimore City Public Schools, Maryland

Lesson attendees will learn several strategies to prevent burnout, increase their social-emotional resiliency, and reexamining their "Why."

Tina Hinds-Booth, SAM Principal
North Kansas City Schools, Missouri

Attendees will learn how to implement and utilize a First Responders List to effectively manage daily disruptions, empowering teacher leaders to handle immediate operational needs. This session will also explore strategies for maintaining the principal's focus on instructional leadership while fostering a collaborative school culture that supports continuous improvement.

Edward Pauly, Change Leadership Collaborative. Formerly head of research for the Wallace Foundation, Ed Pauly is a nationally recognized expert in his field. Now retired, he is a sought after thought partner for educational leaders.
New York, New York

This session seeks to develop the use of feedback to strengthen SAMs and instructional leadership. Participants will discuss: reasons and contexts for seeking feedback; using surveys to gather feedback; engaging with colleagues to discuss survey findings and how to apply them to identifying and building next steps; and how to engage with colleagues to motivate change. Participants are asked to bring and share their feedback experiences and challenges.