This session, Through the Eyes of Children: Equity Work with Our Youngest Learners, will provide elementary leaders with a practical and inspiring look at how schools can embed Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice (DEIJ) work into early childhood and elementary settings in developmentally appropriate ways. Grounded in real examples from a preschool and kindergarten program, participants will explore how engaging both staff and students in examining classroom libraries and instructional practices can uncover issues of representation and spark meaningful change.

 The session highlights the use of tools such as equity audits and the “windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors” framework to help even the youngest learners think critically about identity and inclusion, while emphasizing the power of student voice, collaborative staff work, and intentional leadership in building more equitable school communities. 

This session will support elementary leadership teams to use data to drive outcomes at the student, classroom and school-wide levels. Participants will be introduced to tools that help analyze the efficacy of literacy instruction and supports for students involved in tiered systems of intervention. 

 This session will highlight tools such as aim-lines, phase-lines and literacy action planning.  By measuring students’ response to instruction, classroom benchmarking, and screening data, leaders can leverage coaching & community outreach opportunities!  Leveraging literacy data leads to lasting literacy impacts.  

Elementary leadership demands a constant juggle of documentation, community communication, and policy management. This session focuses on using generative AI as a "digital chief of staff" to automate the transactional aspects of leadership. Participants will learn to use AI to draft nuanced parent communications, distill lengthy district mandates into actionable summaries, and refine raw observation notes into professional, growth-oriented feedback. 

By shifting the heavy lifting of drafting and summarizing to AI, administrators can reclaim their time for what matters most: being present in classrooms and building relationships with students and staff. 

Elementary administrators are often the primary architects of a school’s culture and operational success, yet creating a cohesive system for dually identified learners remains one of the most complex challenges in leadership. When academic and social-emotional needs are addressed in isolation, the resulting lack of coordination often causes fragmented student support and increased teacher burnout.

This session moves beyond the "why" and dives deep into the "how." Participants will explore a practical, building-level roadmap designed to streamline social support deployment. We will examine frameworks that prioritize Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and integrated communication supports, ensuring that social-emotional-communication growth & support is not an elective, but a core component of the school day.