CSS Toolkit: Coordinated Services Team
CSS Field Colleagues and Dropout Prevention Specialists, CA

What will it take to develop an effective Coordinated Services Team? How do you identify student needs? What internal and external resources will you need? How do you “mine” for resources in your community? How do you conduct effective meetings? How do you evaluate whether it is working well? How do you develop early intervention and collaboration with feeder schools/clusters?

Strand: CSS Toolkit
Grade Level: K–12

Shining Star School— Academic Achievement
Leslie Miller, Principal; Mischelle Uhlman, Outreach Consultant, Kwis Elementary School; Hacienda La Puente USD

Shining Star schools are Comprehensive Student Support schools that scored well in this year's annual peer review of their application and showed significant gains in academic improvement by meeting their API and AYP targets. This Shining Star school presents how they used the Comprehensive Student Support strategies to make impressive gains in students' academic achievement.

Strand: Best Practices
Grade Level: K-6

Shining Star School—SST
Michelle Richardson, Principal; Lori Thomas, Outreach Consultant, Appleby Elementary School; Palo Verde USD

Shining Star schools are Comprehensive Student Support schools that scored well in this year's annual peer review of their application and showed significant gains in academic improvement by meeting their API and AYP targets. This Shining Star School presents how they utilized the Student Success Team process as an early identification and intervention approach to help students be successful in school.

Strand: Best Practices
Grade Level: K-6

Add RTI to Your Educational Alphabet Soup
Terry Metzger, Principal, Marengo Ranch Elementary, Galt Union ESD, CA

This session will discuss the basics of Response to Intervention (RTI) legislation, goals, and models, as well as possible steps for implementation of an RTI model at the school level. A focus on blending SST, COST, and RTI will help participants effectively provide services to at-risk students.

Strand: NEW!, Best Practices
Grade Level: K–6

Data to Reduce the Number of Dropouts
David Kopperud, Education Programs Consultant, Counseling, Student Support and Service-Learning Office, CDE, CA

The California Student Information System has developed unique student identification numbers matched with exit codes that identify students who have dropped out of school. Learn how this statewide database can be used to identify dropouts and to bring children back to school, as well as how school truancy rates and truancy notifications can be used to keep students in school.

Strand: Best Practices
Grade Level: K–12

I Get it! Lessons in Comprehension
Patrice Stanzione, Teacher SDC/SLD, Nelson Elementary School, Hacienda La Puente USD, CA

One key to opening the doors of academic success is the knowledge of words. Increase vocabulary, increase comprehension, increase academic success. Whether your student is designated ELL, SPED, or “at risk,” chances are high that they are vocabulary-limited. Learn simple ways to let words, their meanings, and their relationships to other words empower your students’ lives.

Strand: NEW!, Engaging At-Risk Students
Grade Level: K–6

Inclusive Interactive Teaching Strategies
Vicki Butler, Coordinator/CSS Field Colleague, Corona-Norco Special Education, Corona-Norco USD; Andrew Stetkevich, Staff Development Specialist/CSS Field Colleague, Riverside Staff Development Center, Riverside USD, CA

This presentation will focus on best practices for meeting the needs of ALL students in order to bring up underperforming subgroups. Strategies for slower learners, second language learners, special education students, children of poverty, and other children who learn differently will be demonstrated and shared along with interactive teaching techniques.

Strand: Engaging At-Risk Students
Grade Level: K–12

Rebels with Applause: Succeeding with Difficult Students
Grace Dearborn, Educational Consultant, Conscious Teaching, LLC, CA

This lively session will provide K-12 teachers with practical strategies for working with tough students, both in behavior and participation. Strategies for individual students as well as classroom wide strategies will be shared. Leave with your tool kit overflowing with stuff you can use.

Strand: Engaging At-Risk Students
Grade Level: K–12

Temperament, Learning Style & the At-Risk Learner
Vicki Phillips, M.Ed., Director, Personal Development, CA

At-risk students tend to have a distinct temperament and learning style. In this highly interactive session, discover which of the four major personality temperaments is most like you, which tends to dominate mainstream education, and which is typical of most at-risk students. Discover how to narrow the gap between you and your at-risk population.

Strand: Engaging At-Risk Students
Grade Level: K–12

Actively Involving Parents
Ralph Fry, Co-Author, Parent Project, CA

In this session, we will learn tools to actively engage parents of strong-willed or out-of-control children as part of the solution. We’ll look at the problems parents face, discuss strategies to motivate and retain parents’ involvement, and look at several skills we can quickly teach moms and dads to help them to support their children’s school attendance and performance.

Strand: Family and Community Collaboration
Grade Level: K–12

The CalServe Initiative: A Pathway to Student Success
Terry Shorey, Ph.D., Education Program Consultant, CDE: Learning Support & Partner Division; Bette Weinberg, Volunteer Service Director, Volunteer Center Orange County, CA

Participants will learn how to design service-learning initiatives that will improve student achievement and increase attendance and graduation rates. This session will identify resources to create and stimulate high-quality service-learning programs in school districts. Tool kits show how to recruit partnerships, parents, and community members to benefit the school and the community. Resources include tips on funding.

Strand: NEW!, Family and Community Collaboration
Grade Level: K–12

Body in Motion, Brain in Gear—Using Movement to Enhance Attention and Improve Learning
Tim Burns, Educator/Author, Educare Institute, NM

This informative, enjoyable, and fast-paced workshop blends research and practical application within a framework of brain maturation and development, focusing on those areas of the brain that tie together movement, attentional systems, and learning readiness. You will gain knowledge and tools you can use immediately for the benefit of all students. Handouts will be provided.

Strand: Instructional Strategies
Grade Level: K–12

Creating Powerful Writers: Research-based Strategies to Integrate High-Level Vocabulary and Sentences
Carolyn Hood, Master Trainer, Learning Headquarters, CA

Learn meaningful techniques and strategies proven to help all students access higher-level vocabulary, build powerful sentences, employ sentence variety, and extend the complexity of writing. Participants will learn to promote academic and descriptive vocabulary through visual, auditory, and kinesthetic pathways. Teachers will leave with a plethora of techniques to assist all students in writing at standard!

Strand: Instructional Strategies
Grade Level: K–6

“My People Are…Youth Pride in Mixed Heritage”
Tarah Fleming, Co-Director, Multiethnic Education Program, CA

This workshop uses the 20-minute film “My People are…Youth Pride in Mixed Heritage,” which features young performers sharing their pride in culture, history, and ethnic roots through theater, spoken word, interview, dance, rap, and song. The Action Booklet that accompanies the film features interactive activities that explore the issues raised in the film.

Strand: NEW!, Instructional Strategies
Grade Level: 5–12

Proactive Solutions to Address Bullying and Reclaim your School
John Vandenburgh, Coordinator Student Support, Murrieta Valley USD Support Ctr., CA

This session looks at bullying through the lens of youth development and provides practical strategies to address aggressive behavior in youth from a strength-based perspective. This session will introduce you to proactive student-centered strategies that can help parents, teachers, and the whole school community reclaim their school and create a positive place for all students to thrive.

Strand: Safety and Violence Prevention
Grade Level: K–12

Foster Youth Educational Rights
Jacqueline Thu-Huong Wong, M.S.W, P.P.S.C, Foster Youth Services Program, CDE

In this training participants will learn more about the laws governing foster youth and their educational rights. Participants will be given the opportunity to share their experiences working with foster youth and learn more about the statewide efforts to ensure that foster youth educational needs are met.

Strand: NEW!, Foster Youth
Grade Level: K–12