2024 ACSA Leadership Summit

Join us as we share the inspiring journey of a low-socioeconomic high school in Virginia Beach. Faced with a lack of systems and procedures, they quickly set to work, focusing on improving the school's "on-time graduation rate" (OTG). Starting with an OTG of 89.43%, they implemented data-driven systems and closely collaborated with school counselors to track student performance. By the end of the first year, their efforts resulted in an impressive 95.16% OTG rate.

Despite this success, they recognized a significant challenge: a chronic absenteeism rate of 27.80%. To address this, they adopted the Coordination of Services Team (COST) model, inspired by the Alameda County Health Care Services. The COST team, comprising various stakeholders, met weekly to discuss roughly 200 students at risk of not graduating. Through these meetings, they identified tier 2 and 3 supports and targeted interventions, focusing on improving attendance.

By the end of the second year, their comprehensive approach led to a 94.17% OTG rate and a slight decrease in chronic absenteeism. In their third year, they intensified their interventions, achieving a remarkable reduction in chronic absenteeism to 13.64% and projecting an OTG rate of 98.15%.

This session will provide an in-depth look at their strategies, interventions, and the sustainable systems they built. Attendees will leave with practical insights on implementing similar tracking systems, understanding the power of the COST model, and exploring a variety of interventions to improve graduation rates and reduce absenteeism in their own schools.

Healthy relationships are key to building strong communications through teamwork, collaboration, community engagement, and mutual success in the workplace.

But how do you go about building and nurturing those relationships to help support your organization’s communication and community engagement?

Hear from Woodland Joint Unified School District Superintendent Elodia Ortega-Lampkin and Public Information Officer (PIO) Jerry Jimenez on how they worked together during their first two years to create a strong district communication program.

Spoiler alert: Building a mutually positive and supportive relationship built on trust is the secret ingredient.

Not a superintendent or PIO? Not a problem!

This session is aimed at current or aspiring directors, administrators, associate superintendents, assistant superintendents, and superintendents.

Using real-life examples, this session will provide attendees with lessons learned on how to collaborate to develop an effective communication and community engagement program.

The California legislature has invested a great deal of funding to support English learners wanting to work in the healthcare industry. This session will highlight two of these statewide funding opportunities with a panel of adult education leaders at agencies who have received specialized funding to support English learners in healthcare pathways.  

Panel discussion of large urban districts who have successfully implemented AI policy, pathways, and integration within the classroom and lessons. Learn from the panel and learn from one another. This is a session facilitated by the Urban Education Council.

In the realm of public education, clarity is often sought as we strive to address the diverse needs of various groups through goal setting and planning. The abundance of acronyms and state requirements such as SPSA, LCAP, WASC, EL Master Plan, Facilities Plan, and others can easily lead to confusion for us as educators and the public we serve.
We invite you to draw inspiration from the journey of our school district as we successfully transitioned from chaos to coherence, from resistance to celebration, and from confusion to clarity. This transformation was achieved by developing a strategic plan that serves as the foundation for the SPSA, LCAP, EL Master Plan, and WASC Plans.
Additionally, the strategic plan became the primary driver as we went to our community to tell our story and create a foundation for the district to present and pass a heavily challenged parcel tax that helped provide our employees with an 8% salary increase.