Forum on High School Reform

Clay Roberts, Search Institute Trainer, Search Institute

Creating Great Places to Learn

In recent remarks from the National Education Summit on High Schools, Bill Gates describes the New Three R’s—Rigor, Relevance, and Relationships. This keynote will focus on the last of these three R’s—Relationships. When we ensure youth have adults who look out for them and encourage them to do their best, we see greater school success. This keynote will focus on how to bring the relationships back into schools. With this connection between staff and students, we can see young people develop to their highest levels of academic achievement and performance.

Debra Lindo, CEO, College Track East Palo Alto

Interrupting the Cycle of Failure: A Case Study Analysis of a Small School Co-location Initiative

Designing, opening, and operating new small schools with multiple principals co-located, or sharing the same campus, is fast becoming one of the country’s most scalable educational reform models. Debbra Lindo will use her experience dismantling a large comprehensive high school in one of the most imperiled school districts in California, Oakland Unified Schools, as a case study to define the managerial territory associated with the conceptual framework of school redesign and co-location. She will then identify the accompanying skill set principals need to address said abstraction.

Marilyn Tabor, President, Organizational Dynamics

Teacher Leadership + Collaboration = Student Success

Schools where all students learn are places where teachers work collaboratively. However, the level of collaboration required to keep students as the centerpiece in Smaller Learning Communities is impossible to achieve without teacher leadership. How do teacher leaders influence the culture in SLCs? How can they impact collective continuous improvement? Find the answers to those questions, and also discover the powerful ways that teacher leaders contribute to student success by guiding Collaborative Conversations focused on student learning and professional practice.