2025 Schedule
Day 1
Summit Hours: 8:00 AM – 4:50 PM
Registration & Breakfast: Begins at 7:00 AM
Cocktail Hour: 5:00 – 5:45 PM
Day 2
Summit Hours: 8:00 AM – 3:30 PM
Breakfast: Starts at 7:00 AM
Speaker Sessions
Agenda subject to adjustments as we finalize the details.
Day 1 Breakout Sessions
I am More than a Test Score: Reframing Achievement in Education | Jamila Lyiscott
Deficit-focused perspectives of testing and evaluation question students’ abilities rather than the ways that high-stakes testing has corrupted the true spirit of teaching and learning, especially for students of color. In this keynote and subsequent workshop, Dr. J will draw on over 15 years of her community-engaged research to illuminate the dehumanizing nature of reducing students to test scores, and to grapple with the possibilities of reframing assessment and achievement through a liberatory lens.
Exploring Equity Traps and Tropes: Preventing Intentions for EducationTransformation From Going Awry | Dr. Jamila Dugan
Many of our district and school equity efforts focus on oversimplified quick fixes and the implementation of off-the-shelf solutions. While we may feel a sense of urgency to address deep-rooted equity issues, our attempts are often thwarted by landmines that can be identified and removed through strategic analysis and creative action. In this session, Dr. Dugan hosts a preamble to the conversation around radical dreaming by laying out common equity traps and tropes that can undermine our well-intentioned efforts to transform education. Through storytelling and real-world examples, we explore why it is so hard to move equity work forward while beginning to find the courage to move toward Street Data, a next-generation model for school transformation, and unhinge ourselves from a legacy of “implementation” over imagination.
Bias Disrupted: Rewiring Our Decisions & Strengthening Our Hiring Practices | Chaka Booker
Nearly a decade ago, Chaka began a journey to identify practices that effectively and consistently disrupted biases during interviewing. Understanding how to make more effective hiring decisions was only the beginning and it evolved from interviewing into a wide range of people practices from onboarding to delivering feedback, and even how to think about artificial intelligence. During his keynote, he will share the broader implications and during his breakout sessions, Chaka will lead an interactive training in which you’ll learn bias-disrupting interview practices so accessible that you can put them into action today.
Facing Facts: How we found out the truth about our district and what we did about it | Todd Collins
Palo Alto Unified is one of the top rated (and best funded) school districts in the nation. But digging into our student achievement data, we found out that, in fact, we were failing the student who relied on us the most. Learn how we discovered the truth about our school district’s performance and what happened when we faced the facts.
Building a Growth-Driven Culture: Embracing Transparency, Data, and the Power of Failure | Melanie Matta & Flor Martinez
Join Melanie Matta, Superintendent of Hope Elementary School District and Flor Martinez, 5th grade Math and Science teacher, as they dive into the transformative impact of creating a growth-driven culture grounded in data transparency and continuous improvement. In this high-energy session, they’ll share how establishing a safe environment—where students and staff are encouraged to take risks and learn from mistakes—has become a catalyst for meaningful change in their school. Through practical examples and real-life stories, you’ll explore how data can shine a light on growth areas, while reframing setbacks as essential steps toward progress. Walk away with actionable strategies to cultivate a culture that values resilience, encourages open conversations about performance, and views data not only as a measure of achievement but as a powerful tool for inspiring lifelong learning.
Coming soon: Mary Cochron, Rachael Maves and Fresno Unified A4.
Day 2 Breakout Sessions
Measuring Impact with Parsec Clarity | Dr. Marshall Baker
Discover how Clarity simplifies goal tracking and measures the effectiveness of your actions. This session will explore fidelity monitoring, actionable insights, and interactive LCAP visualizations to help you stay on track and achieve lasting impact.
Accelerating Middle School Math Success: Real Stories from Educators and Students on Building a Pathway to Algebra | Sheryl Sisil & Ismael Serrano
Conference attendees will gain insights into the successful partnership between Madera Unified School District and the University of California, Merced, which focused on accelerating students’ math achievement beginning in middle school. This summer math program helped students significantly advance in math and exemplified a collaboration model built on solid relationships and analyzing data. Guided by the principle of ‘making decisions based on what is right for students, supported by research and data,’ this initiative prioritized student outcomes through targeted, strategic interventions. We will hear directly from the teachers and students involved in the course, providing firsthand perspectives on how they achieved meaningful math acceleration. Attendees will also learn practical strategies for implementing similar programs in their districts, enabling middle school students to enhance and accelerate their math skills and to complete Algebra 1 or Integrated Math 1 before entering high school. The session will explore the challenges and the rewards of such initiatives, showcasing how strategic planning and dedicated support can lead to impressive gains in student math achievement.
Unpacking the Value of the Black American Experience: Let Me Explain Black Again | Pepper Miller
In this presentation, Pepper Miller delves into the rich yet often misunderstood Black American experience. She highlights the ‘why’ behind cultural beliefs, behaviors, values, and business leaders’ blind spots. Pepper emphasizes the importance of understanding the motivations and history that drive the Black community and offers a deeper understanding of how these insights can spark transformative change in education and beyond.
Elevating student voice through the Postsecondary Culture Survey | Heather Zoll, Dr. Kayla Ritter Rickels and Symone Morales
This session by OneGoal explores a more holistic approach to assessing school quality and student success by going beyond traditional metrics. Rather than relying solely on standard data points, OneGoal advocates for tools that capture complex changes in school culture and systems to guide improvement. The session will present a landscape analysis of common success metrics in college and career readiness and introduce practical tools: Student & Adult Postsecondary Culture Surveys and the Postsecondary Readiness Rubric Assessment. These tools allow practitioners to triangulate data, better understand the conditions impacting student outcomes, and define success uniquely for their contexts. Through interactive visualizations and case examples, participants will learn how these tools differ from traditional metrics and discuss their use to elevate stakeholder voices. Ultimately, the session encourages leaders to assess their current accountability systems, adopt these tools for deeper insights, and foster continuous improvement in their institutions.
The Power of Cultural Appreciation: How to build courageous educational spaces to impact positive change | Dr. Angie Barfield
Hear directly from students serving on school boards as they share their unique experiences and perspectives. This interactive panel will provide insights into how they approach real-world challenges and decision-making in schools.
Unlocking Insights from SBAC Data | Tony Alpert
Dive into the world of Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) data with Tony Alpert, a founding leader in educational assessment. In this interactive session, attendees will gain expert guidance on analyzing and processing SBAC data to uncover actionable insights for their schools and districts.
Participants are encouraged to bring their own SBAC data, which will be decomposed in real time to highlight trends, identify opportunities, and address challenges. Tony will also share an exclusive look at upcoming innovations in assessment tools and methodologies, offering a glimpse into the future of data-driven education.
Don’t miss this unique opportunity to learn from one of the visionaries behind SBAC and leave with practical strategies to elevate your approach to data analysis.
From Planning Failure to Engineering Success: Beyond SMART Goalsa | Keith Derrick
Are you tired of celebrating “improvements” that still plan to fail 40% of students? What if you looked at your school improvement plan and replaced “students” with “my child”? Would you still be comfortable with that 60% proficiency target? This session challenges the sacred cow of SMART goals in education and confronts the uncomfortable truth about how we’ve normalized planning for student failure. Moving beyond traditional goal-setting and end-of-year assessments, explore how continuous data serves as your system’s nervous system, allowing real-time adjustments that ensure every student succeeds. Through this framework, you’ll learn how to transform your data use from an autopsy tool to a GPS system—combining unwavering moral purpose with the right kind of continuous data to transform your school from accepting failure to ensuring success for every child.
Keynote Sessions
Bias Disrupted: Rewiring Our Decisions & Strengthening Our Hiring Practices | Chaka Booker
Nearly a decade ago, Chaka began a journey to identify practices that effectively and consistently disrupted biases during interviewing. Understanding how to make more effective hiring decisions was only the beginning and it evolved from interviewing into a wide range of people practices from onboarding to delivering feedback, and even how to think about artificial intelligence. During his keynote, he will share the broader implications and during his breakout sessions, Chaka will lead an interactive training in which you’ll learn bias-disrupting interview practices so accessible that you can put them into action today.
A Journey of Radical Re-Membering | Liliana Sanchez
Through this talk, I will share my story—how I came to be who I am today—and the journey I had to travel to find and affirm my roots to reconnect and re-member my multiple identities. This journey involved confronting and disrupting some of the fearsome institutional barriers designed to silence me, diminish and limit me, and, to some extent, make me invisible. I’ll share my experiences as well as lessons learned and the implications for how we can better support our students.
Unpacking the Value of the Black American Experience: Let Me Explain Black Again | Pepper Miller
In this presentation, Pepper Miller delves into the rich yet often misunderstood Black American experience. She highlights the ‘why’ behind cultural beliefs, behaviors, values, and business leaders’ blind spots. Pepper emphasizes the importance of understanding the motivations and history that drive the Black community and offers a deeper understanding of how these insights can spark transformative change in education and beyond.
I am More than a Test Score: Reframing Achievement in Education | Jamila Lyiscott
Deficit-focused perspectives of testing and evaluation question students’ abilities rather than the ways that high-stakes testing has corrupted the true spirit of teaching and learning, especially for students of color. In this keynote and subsequent workshop, Dr. J will draw on over 15 years of her community-engaged research to illuminate the dehumanizing nature of reducing students to test scores, and to grapple with the possibilities of reframing assessment and achievement through a liberatory lens.
The Possible Future of Education: An Invitation to Radically Dream | Dr. Jamila Dugan
The education system is broken, and we’ve known this for a long time. Yet, even after experiencing time away from schools during the pandemic, we are still clinging to an archaic system. Urgency, fear, and the pull of the dominant paradigm of schooling have led many educators toward a feverish return to the status quo—reducing schooling experiences to addressing perceived student deficits and learning for the sake of achievement on standardized tests. In this keynote, we explore what it could look like to make a fundamental mindset shift toward capitalizing on the possibilities of now and the transformative chance to dream. What if we moved from how we deal with the perceived loss of learning from the pandemic to questions about how to envision the future of learning? What if we didn’t just follow the guidance of curriculum developers and policymakers but took lessons from the legacies of abolitionists and freedom fighters? What if we started to radically dream? And how does radical dreaming help us orient toward measuring what we value? Join us for a conversation about the meaning of radical dreaming, its importance, and how it could help us usher in a new education future.
Student Panel Discussion: Student Involvement on Campus | National Student Board Member Association (NSBMA)
Hear directly from students serving on school boards as they share their unique experiences and perspectives. This interactive panel will provide insights into how they approach real-world challenges and decision-making in schools.
Listening to Our Students | Dr. Angie Barfield
Hear directly from high school students from across the Central Valley.
Beyond the Classroom: Honest Dialogues on Race and Identity | Dr. Angie Barfield
Hear from Babatunde Ilori and Rich Stowell as they have an honest and thought-provoking dialogue on race and identity, fostering meaningful conversations that extend beyond the classroom.
Coming soon: Diego Arambula and Timi Ilori
