Join Us for a Summer of Learning
Summer is the perfect opportunity to slow down and ask questions. How can we continuously improve our district, our school, our classroom practices? How can we ensure equitable outcomes for all students? As educators, how can we challenge and support each other throughout the academic year?
We invite you to explore and seek answers to questions such as these by registering for one (or more!) of our multi-day virtual summer institutes. Check out the complete summer lineup below.
Below you will find a timeline of events for the summer of 2023. For more information, please visit each institute’s page on our event calendar by clicking the appropriate button below.
Are you joining as a school or district team of five or more educators? Contact Paulina Murton to discuss discount pricing.
IMPORTANT NOTES
- Equipment: Participants will need a computer with audio and video, as well as a stable internet connection. All participants will receive a digital certificate of contact hours and access to digital versions of all materials used in the session.
- Team Process: If you are attending as a member of a team, it’s very important that each member of your team log in from their own device and in their own space. Our events, even when focused on teamwork, may include breakout rooms and cross-team conversations.
- Community members and student participation: We value community and student voices. If you would like to include students or community members as part of your team but are restricted by budget, please contact our event team. We are fortunate to have some limited funding to help underwrite some of these costs if this is a demonstrated need for you.
Leveraging Professional Learning Groups to Improve Instruction and Increase Educational Equity
Professional learning groups (PLGs) give educators the space, time, and resources they need to improve their instruction through collaborative discourse and praxis. By looking together at teacher and student work, we can reflect on our teaching practices and refine them to better meet the needs of all students.
How do effective PLGs work to build collective efficacy and improve student learning? What principles of adult learning inform our work so that we can nurture and grow our teaching practice? And how do we continue to grow our collaborative skills over time? These are some of the essential questions this institute will address.
Perhaps you are just getting started with PLGs; we will help you build a strong foundation for collaborative work. Maybe your PLGs are ready for new growth; we will help you understand where you are now and how to strengthen your system to produce more equitable outcomes. This institute provides multiple entry points and will engage all participants in meaningful conversations, protocols, and reflection.
Building Family and Community Engagement for Educational Equity
This will be an action-oriented institute. By tending to mindset work and the building and sustaining of structures, we will share strategies to center relationship-building and honoring families’ key role in facilitating student success. Together, we will develop a shared understanding of how to invest in our families and communities and how those investments can strengthen our education systems.
Over three days, we’ll unlearn the myths and assumptions that often prevent authentic partnerships between families and community members and the complex systems and policies in education. What sets this institute apart is our direct focus on classroom-, school-, and district-level strategies to build meaningful relationships with and learn from the families and communities supporting schools. Whether you have a robust family liaison department or are just beginning to think about how family and community engagement can look in your context, there will be opportunities to learn and to grow together.
Coherence and Equity Through the Portrait of a Graduate Process
A Portrait of a Graduate is a vision that articulates the collective hopes and dreams that a community has for its students—as well as the skills and attributes that all students need in order to be prepared for college, work, and life. The process meaningfully engages a diverse team that represents all community partners, ensuring an equitable and representative process that unites the community.
Join us in building a common understanding of the iterative Portrait of a Graduate and strategic planning processes. Learn key strategies for widespread community engagement that support partners in creating a collective vision. Consider, share, and discuss examples from other states and districts. Get down to the nitty gritty—explore, develop, and work with the tools your team will need to make your community’s hopes and dreams a living reality.
Building Restorative Practices
In today’s rapidly evolving educational landscape, the importance of building strong relationships within school communities has never been more critical. We invite you to participate in our three-day virtual institute designed specifically for school and district leaders who are dedicated to fostering connection and empathy through the implementation of restorative practices in their schools. Our experienced restorative justice educators will guide you through interactive sessions on circles, peer mediation, family group conferencing, peer courts, and more—and help you develop meaningful goals and strategies to cultivate a restorative culture within your school.
Embracing restorative practices and prioritizing relationship-building will lead to transformative results in your school community. Research has shown that when schools focus on nurturing relationships, they experience improvements in various key areas, including a more positive school culture, increased graduation rates, decreased chronic absenteeism, higher achievement rates, and reduced dropout rates. Restorative practices have also demonstrated success in addressing broken relationship issues, thus reducing the reliance on suspensions and promoting equity and social-emotional well-being. Please join us on this journey toward creating safer, more inclusive, and supportive learning environments that empower every student to reach their full potential.
Don’t take our word for it. Participants from past summer sessions had a lot to say about their experiences.
This [session] helped me build confidence; moreover, it allowed my team to work on actualizing the learning that we were doing, which is so important. I'm leaving feeling inspired, rather than fearful, for the upcoming year(s) and all the work that must be done.
I always look forward to GSP workshops and trainings because I find them to be well-planned, responsive, and structured. These elements allow me to feel safe when I am pushing myself out of my comfort zone to take risks.
It was really a wonderful opportunity to get to connect with educators from other districts but also to dig into work with our own district! My only regret is that we didn't have even more time! I left feeling humbled, impressed, and empowered.
I was not expecting this to be SO effective and productive via Zoom; you have taught us a lot! I really appreciated how carefully and thoughtfully you structured this experience.
I am deeply grateful for this experience and the knowledge of how many student lives it will impact. Thank you.