Fall Meeting Pre-Conferences are all held on Wednesday, November 7, 2018 in San Antonio, TX. This year, you can choose from full day sessions, half day sessions, and school visits. Please see full descriptions below.

You can sign up for your pre-conference of choice when registering for the Fall Meeting. If you are interested in attending a pre-conference but are not able to attend the Fall Meeting, please contact Heidi Vosekas at contact@schoolreforminitiative.org or by phone at 303-586-1169.

 Full Day Sessions

Introduction to SRI Principles and Practices
Presenter: Beth I. Graham, Professional Development Specialist, School Reform Initiative
Cost: $125
Time: 8:30am-4:30pm
Location: San Antonio Marriott Riverwalk

What is SRI, and how is the Fall Meeting different from other conferences I’ve attended? What’s a protocol, and why would I want to use one? What do you mean by ‘equity?’ Why should I practice collaboration and reflection? Who am I in my practice and why does it matter? Why am I here, anyway?

The purpose of this low-key and fun session is to support participants new to SRI to explore these and other questions about what to expect at Fall Meeting. We’ll take some time to figure out who’s in the group (and why that matters) and establish norms that will simultaneously hold us and challenge us to be learners together. We’ll practice feeling what it’s like to learn in collaboration and through reflective discourse by using a couple of protocols. SRI’s mission will be woven throughout this session: we’ll frame learning through a lens of equity and reflect on our own identity and how we show up in our professional practice. Together, we will construct meaning of SRI principles and practices, through small group experiences and individual reflection, and leave ready to transition into Fall Meeting with confidence and a sense of purpose.

Session Outcomes:

  • Learn about SRI’s mission and what it means to be part of this mission-drive organization
  • Prepare to be full participants in collaborative learning groups at Fall Meeting by:
    • becoming familiar with the habits and dispositions of collaborative and reflective practice
    • using SRI tools to engage in conversation about equity, and to learn from authentic issues and artifacts in professional practice
    • reflect on our identity in order to begin to surface assumptions and beliefs and how these might play out in our professional practice

Intended Audience: Anyone new to the work of School Reform Initiative: Teachers, Coaches, School Leaders
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Coaching for Equity: Mediating the Thinking and Practice of Classroom Educators
Presenters: Gene Thompson-Grove, Educational Consultant, Gene Thompson-Grove & Associates & Debra Laidley, Administrative Coordinator, Educator Development and Support, Los Angeles Unified School District
Cost: $125
Time: 8:30am-4pm
Location: San Antonio Marriott Riverwalk

What is the relationship between knowing classroom educators’ strengths and challenges, creating a coaching relationship that asks teachers to use an equity lens, and achieving equity and excellence? As instructional coaches and leaders, what do we need to know, understand and be able to do? Using video, readings, case studies and our own critical incidents, we will take up the issue of how to effectively mediate the thinking and practice of classroom educators as it relates to culturally responsive practice.

Session Outcomes:

  • Exploring the role ideology, implicit bias, microagressions, and stereotype threat play in the policies and practices that get enacted in schools and classrooms
  • Identify the dispositions and habits of culturally responsive educators, and share how to develop and support these habits in both ourselves and the teachers with whom we work
  • Practice providing meaningful and actionable feedback using an equity lens, in order to collaboratively improve teaching practice

Intended Audience: Instructional coaches, teacher leaders, school leaders
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Equity Not Diversity: Engaging in and Leading Anti-Oppression Work in Education
Presenter: Dr. Amber Kim, Consultant, Amber Kim Consulting, Lecturer,  University of Colorado Denver
Cost: $125
Time: 8:30am-4:30pm
Location: San Antonio Marriott Riverwalk

What’s the difference between Diversity, Inclusivity, and Equity work? Come recognize the dangers of diversity/inclusivity initiatives and realize that anti-oppression work is the only way to ensure true equity. Together we will explore our own identities and biases that deeply impact our work with colleagues and those we serve. We will examine overt and hidden oppression present in our schools and organizations. We will also define and develop Equity Literacy—the ability to see, respond to, and redress inequity that surrounds us in our work.

This full day experience uses videos, activities, SRI protocols, case studies and readings to keep us engaged and challenge thinking, actions, and leadership for equity in education. All of these tools will help workshop participants facilitate their own conversations about diversity and equity with adults and young people. In the end, participants will leave with a vocabulary that empowers, a commitment to do equity work not diversity initiatives, and tools to threaten the existence of injustice in education.

Session Outcomes:

  • Recognize the dangers of diversity/inclusivity initiatives
  • Develop a vocabulary that empowers us to articulate what anti-oppression work is and why it is needed
  • Define and develop Equity Literacy
  • Examine overt and hidden oppression present in our schools and organizations
  • Explore our own identities and biases that impact our work with colleagues and those we serve
  • Gain tools to threaten the existence of injustice in our spaces

Intended Audience: Teachers, Leaders, Students
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Half-Day Sessions

First Annual Meeting of SRI Writers, Researchers and Story Tellers
Presenters: Kevin Fahey, Frances Hensley, Angela Breidenstein, Jacy Ippolito
Cost: $25
Time: 8:30am-12pm
Location: San Antonio Marriott Riverwalk

Over the last few years there has been an explosion of research, books, book chapters, and journal articles based on the principles and practices of the School Reform Initiative. Our authors have produced books on teacher supervision, teaching and coaching for equity, adult development, facilitation, school change and much more. These authors are from every region of the country – MA, TX, IN, GA, NY, CO, etc. – and have been published by important professional presses such as Teachers College Press, Harvard Education Press, Routledge, Rowan and Littlefield, Heinemann, and the University of Chicago Press as well as leading journals such as Ed Leadership, Learning Forward, National Association of Elementary School Principals, Journal of School Leadership, the Journal of Adult & Adolescent Literacy, and many more. Yet despite all of this amazing work, the SRI community needs to continue to work to tell its many stories and help educators understand the power, complexity, and challenge of this important work.

During this half day pre-conference, we hope SRI writers, or aspiring writers of any experience, will meet together to learn about the work that SRI affiliates are currently engaged in, consider common dilemmas connected to writing about such complicated work, and have an opportunity to present to a small group their own drafts, questions, or writing possibilities for feedback. Particularly welcome are folks who are considering answering the recent call for personal stories about SRI work. Everyone, whether they are working on (or thinking about working on) a poem, short story, vignette, journal article, blog post, dissertation, or book is welcome. The goal, as always, is to take advantage of the learning that is only available when we are together in a “transformational learning community fiercely committed to educational equity and excellence.”

Session Outcomes:

  • Learn about the work that SRI affiliates are currently engaged in
  • Consider common dilemmas connected to writing about such complicated work
  • Present to a small group their own drafts, questions, or writing possibilities for feedback
  • Identify writing that could be published by SRI

Intended Audience: All writers of any genre are welcome. We invite you to share your writing with SRI so we may gather all the varied and important stories from the field.
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Mindful Behavior: Fusing Theoretical Technologies Toward Equity and Excellence
Presenters: Steven Strull, Director, Student Support Services, Brooklyn North Field Support Center, New York City Department of Education
Cost: $75
Time: 1pm-4:30pm
Location: San Antonio Marriott Riverwalk

This half day pre-conference session will focus on the connections between western non-sectarian mindfulness practices and classical Skinnerian Behaviorism. The essential question: “Can ALL humans who enter a school house each day choose to behave in a way that will lead to educational equity?” will be the focus of our time together. Participants will be (re)introduced to basic notions of mindfulness and behaviorism with specific attention toward our current lived experience in post-industrial schooling coupled with possibilities for changing our shared realities. SRI protocols will be used to help attendees articulate and share their daily experiences in schools at the classroom, school, and/or district level as well as consider how mindfulness practices and resources may be incorporated in their work. Additionally, an overview of the theories that bridge mindfulness and behaviorism will be presented with a structured process for critical feedback.

Session Outcomes:

  • Understand the connections between Mindfulness and Behaviorism
  • Navigate the possibility that choosing to behave differently will lead to increased equity of student outcomes
  • Learn and practice basic Mindfulness techniques that may be applied in varied educational settings

Intended Audience: Teachers, Principals, Superintendents
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Off-Site School Visits

Transitioning from Intentional to Transformational Learning: School Visit to Lamar Elementary School
Presenters: Brian Sparks, Principal, Lamar Elementary; Pat Norman, Associate Professor, Trinity University & SRI Board Chair
Cost: $100
Time: 1pm-4:30pm
Location: Lamar Elementary School, 201 Parland Place, San Antonio, TX

Lamar Elementary is a public school serving 400 Pre-K through 6th grade students in the San Antonio Independent School District. Tucked in a residential community just north of downtown San Antonio, the school is home to three types of classrooms: bilingual one-way (only native Spanish speakers), dual language (mix of native Spanish and English speakers), and general education classes. Educators and students use SRI tools and processes to support both teachers’ and students’ learning. The school has partnered with Trinity University as a Professional Development School for the past five years. Both partners share responsibility for making the campus a strong place for everyone’s learning, including students, families, teacher candidates, and experienced teachers.

Lamar recently identified five overarching goals for all members of the campus community:

  • advocacy;
  • collaboration;
  • cultural competence;
  • curiosity; and
  • emotional intelligence.

In this half-day pre-conference, participants will learn about several school-based initiatives to support these goals, use the School Walk protocol to provide feedback on whether/how the goals are reflected in the school, and engage in a protocol to help the school examine and address a specific equity challenge it currently faces.

Read how SRI tools have been used to help Lamar students explore social justice issues.

Transportation will be provided from the San Antonio Marriott Riverwalk to the school and back again.
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