Full Schedule

Wednesday, October 7, 2026

11:00am Convention Registration

12:30-4:00 PreConvention Sessions

1. Build Your Dream Team: Maximize the Impact of Your Leadership Team 

Jenn David-Lang, Author, The Main Idea

Working together as a team is what helps people achieve extraordinary results. That’s why your leadership team is crucial to the success of your school. Come learn ways to bring your leadership team together, set clear priorities, function better as a team, collaboratively solve problems, build trust, improve communication, and manage conflict. What’s more, you will walk away with materials to conduct each of these activities easily with your own leadership team back home.

Jenn David-Lang founded THE MAIN IDEA in 2007 because she found many school leaders were too overwhelmed with their day-to-day responsibilities to find time for their own professional learning. So, she created THE MAIN IDEA to give education leaders easy access to the most current and powerful ideas in education to help them better serve as strong instructional leaders. Jenn has worked in the field of education for over 30 years. She has had a wide range of experiences in both teaching and administration. In her early years she founded and directed Providence Summerbridge, a nonprofit to raise the academic achievement of urban middle school students; she taught both math and English; got her principal’s license and master’s in educational administration; and she helped to start a number of New York City schools.

2. Legal Essentials for Elementary Principals: Navigating Custody, Special Education, and Current Legal Challenges
Malina Piontek, AWSA Retained Attorney, Melissa Thiel Collar, Green Bay School District & Tess O’Brien-Heinzen, Renning, Lewis & Lacy

Join three experienced school law attorneys for a practical and focused seminar designed specifically for elementary school principals. This session will equip you with the essential legal knowledge and practical strategies needed to confidently handle some of the most complex, yet common, legal issues arising in the elementary school setting. Learn how to navigate the delicate and often confusing landscape of parental rights and interpreting and applying court orders (e.g., sole custody, joint custody, restraining orders) in the school environment. This session will also offer targeted insights into Special Education law (IDEA and Section 504) relevant to younger students. Finally, our panel will delve into critical legal issues arising out of new state and federal laws, agency actions, and landmark court cases. This seminar is essential for any elementary principal seeking to minimize risk, ensure compliance, and confidently lead their school community while upholding the law. Bring your questions for an engaging and informative Q&A session with our expert panel. 

3. Threat Evaluation and Reporting Overview for Schools 

Dr. Jen Garin, Principal, 21st Century Preparatory School, Racine School District

This presentation will empower school staff to recognize threats or observable behaviors that may concern others. It will raise community awareness about targeted violence and behavioral threat assessment and management. It will build state and local capacity to identify and report warning signs and help partners understand the resources available to get involved and keep communities and schools safe.

2:00-4:00 PreConvention Session

4. Planning for Your Retirement 

Joel Craven, Owner, Astraios Financial

This session will provide information on the three legs of a solid retirement: the WI Retirement System, Social Security and personal savings (e.g., Roth, 403(b) plans, etc.). The session will also cover what educators should know about putting savings to good use and public service loan forgiveness. Come with your questions and leave better prepared for your future.

5:00 Welcome Reception 

Thursday, October 8, 2026

7:00 Registration & Continental Breakfast

7:30 New Principal Breakfast

8:30 Welcome and Opening Keynote

The Why Effect: Intentional Systems Drive Inspirational Cultures

Regina Owens 

Organizational purpose, collective beliefs, and commitments affect building systems at all levels. How can we ensure that all practices and procedures are intentional and personify organizational beliefs? It all begins with the why. Regina Stephens Owens shares strategies to move cultures from an attitude of compliance, coercion, and fear to one that is respectful, responsive, and reflective.

Participants can expect to:

● Promote high standards of achievement for all.

● Create a collective, rather than individual, leadership focus.

● Design and sustain a values-driven culture that is evidenced by trust, transparency, reflection, and responsiveness.

Regina Stephens Owens, EdD, is an internationally recognized presenter and practitioner who specializes in creating a culture of interdependence and collaboration while utilizing systems thinking. With innovative solutions and emerging technologies, she coaches and supports teachers and leaders in transforming culture and community utilizing the professional learning community philosophy. Regina has published works in support of Response to Intervention in the brick-and-mortar as well as virtual-learning spaces. In addition, she has written articles on designing inspirational cultures that promote developing intentional experiences ensuring students and adults learn. As a former teacher, campus principal, and district administrator of curriculum and instruction, Regina is a passionate and empathetic educator who has served in rural and urban schools, guiding their transformation processes, resulting in local, state, and national recognition. She served as the principal of innovative schools including Spring Virtual School and Early College Academy, both operating under the professional learning community philosophy and ensuring high levels of learning for all. The Virtual School, one of the first online professional learning communities, brought together her life’s work of connecting passion-driven learning and global competencies to the work of the real world.

9:45 Beverage Break with Exhibitors

10:15 Concurrent Sessions Round 1

1. Blueprint for Mathematical Excellence: Cultivating People, Structures, and Systems for Effective Teaching
Brad Sturmer, Principal, Winskill Elementary School, Lancaster School District
This session highlights how intentional leadership focused on people, structures, and systems can transform math learning and school culture. Participants will explore how establishing the right organizational conditions—starting with a strong culture and climate—allows effective teaching strategies to take root and thrive. Leave with practical ideas and tools to build a sustainable framework for mathematical excellence in your school. Impact:  Winskill Elementary increased math proficiency from 38.6% in 2018 to 80% in 2025, including 47% advanced, through intentional systems design and a focus on culture, people, and structures and systems that support great teaching.

2. Cultivating Courageous Capacity Through Care and Collective Responsibility
Regina Owens, Keynote Speaker

Build a bold learning culture by encouraging risk taking and empowering growth. Create systems that boost well-being, spark curiosity, and use data to drive real progress. In this session, Regina Stephens Owens explores how these strategies build resilient learning environments rooted in care and collective responsibility—where educators are empowered to lead profound, lasting change. Participants in this session:

● Transform learning by encouraging risk taking.

● Design systems that support well-being and growth.

● Sustain progress by fostering a sense of value, connection, and support.

3. Feedback That Sticks: How to Give Your Teachers Feedback that Changes Practice
Jenn David-Lang, Author, The Main Idea

What might be happening with the feedback you give to teachers that causes it to fall flat? Changing teacher practice is complex and involves a lot more than carefully wording your feedback or getting your body language right. Learn concrete strategies to give more effective feedback that results in changed practice and improved student learning.

4. Who Do You Aspire to Hire?
Tammy Gibbons, Director of Professional Learning, AWSA  

Hiring is a routine responsibility for school leaders, yet in an era of limited applicant pools and uneven candidate quality, the challenge is building strong, effective teams that truly serve all students. A 2016 High Impact Leadership study found that only 48% of leaders are perceived as driving change and innovation, and just 44% are seen as developing talent for competitive advantage. This session will explore essential principles for thoughtfully planning and executing a hiring process that ensures the candidates you select deliver on the promises made in the interview.

11:30 Luncheon and Principal of the Year Ceremony

12:30 Dessert with Exhibitors

1:00 Concurrent Sessions Round 2

1. Distributive Leadership and a Systematic Approach to Impacting Student Achievement
Nkaujnou Vang-Vue, Principal, Lake View Elementary School, Madison Metro School District
This session will explore the power of distributive leadership and creating systematic approaches to teaching that will impact student achievement. We will share our story in creating a school-wide structure that centers student learning, teacher responsibility, and collective ownership that impacts the culture of learning for students and staff. We will share how we identified our buckets of work, created systems to support each bucket, and how we balanced implementing district expectations as well as being innovative with our approaches. Participants will learn about how distributive leadership lends itself to building systems that are aligned and supports instructional cohesion across grade levels and classrooms. These efforts have been key to our school improving our growth and proficiency rate in literacy from 36/100 in achievement and 48/100 in growth in 2018-2019 to 43/100 in achievement and 89/100 in growth in 2024-2025.

2. Manage Those Difficult Conversations Calmly, Gracefully, and Productively
Jenn David Lang, Author, The Main Idea

Communication is messy. Personalities clash, opinions differ, and emotions run high. Yet, communication is at the heart of everything we do in schools. Learn how to defuse those difficult conversations and go even further to turn them into productive ones.

3. High-Impact Leadership Practices: Reflect on the Research, Return on the Investment Back Home
Joe Schroeder, Associate Executive Director, AWSA

John Hattie is a globally recognized researcher who describes the impact of over 250 influences on student learning. Typically, the focus of his work is on teaching practice. However, in this session, we will focus on the leadership practices that Hattie’s meta-analysis and others show have the highest effect size on student learning. This session will help you gauge your own practices alongside these top few and leave with approaches for bringing them to life powerfully in your school.

4. From Gaps to Access: What Leaders Must Do Differently
Yaribel Rodriguez, Director of Urban Leadership, AWSA

Closing achievement gaps across race, ability, socioeconomic status, and language is often framed as needing more interventions, more programs, or more time. In reality, the greatest opportunity lies in strengthening Tier 1 core instruction. Using case studies, research and local examples, leaders will identify the small, high-leverage shifts in core instruction and schoolwide practices that produce disproportionate gains for all students, accelerate learning, increase teacher efficacy and most importantly close gaps!

2:15 Beverage Break with Exhibitors

2:30 Concurrent Sessions Rounds 3

1. BOOM Sessions: Best Practices for Impactful Leadership
These fast-paced "Boom Sessions" deliver high-impact insights in just 8-10 minutes. Our presenters will share proven best practices in Leadership Strategies that Improve Student Outcomes and Leadership Strategies to Strengthen School Culture. Get ready for quick takeaways, followed by a 5-minute Q&A to deepen your understanding.

• All Kids are Capable: Small Ways to Transform Culture in Elementary School
  Meg Boyd, Greenfield
  You won't land a principal job if you don't say something like, "I believe all kids can learn." But how does that belief become an actionable part of school culture, both for adults and students? In this session, you'll learn about two subtle shifts you can make to existing practices you have (PBIS -based tickets and Student of the Month) that put the focus on character development and growth and ensure that we see and celebrate the good in all kids. You'll also see examples of how we use goal-setting with learners K5-5 to foster both their engagement and their personal sense of capability. Believing kids are capable isn't enough; belief must be translated into action.

• Transforming Active Student Engagement into Meaningful Discourse
  Melissa Horn, Hamilton
  I have heard Discourse described as the "muscle memory" of learning that must be built from Kindergarten onward. We feel to get to this discourse you have to have active engagement. I will share how we started on this journey first in math and then into all academic areas to increase our student achievement through intentional professional development, application and reflection.

• A One-Year Culture Boot Camp: Leadership Moves to Build or Reset School Culture
  Megan Challoner, Amery
  What if you approached culture change like a one-year boot camp? The first year in a leadership role or the moment you decide to reset expectations; can be a powerful window to intentionally shape the culture of your school. In this fast-paced 10-minute session, principals will explore key leadership moves that can be implemented over the course of a single year to intentionally build or reshape school culture. Drawing from firsthand experience entering a new school community, this session will highlight the strategic actions, routines, and communication practices that helped rapidly shift adult mindsets and behaviors toward a more student-centered joy filled culture.

• Strategic Leadership: Using Internal Power Players to Move Your School's Known Barriers
  Brad Larrabee, Maple
  Strategic leadership isn't just about having a great vision; it's also about understanding your school's historical landscape. This fast paced 10 minute Boom Session will empower leaders to build leadership teams focused on leveraging their internal "power players" with focus on developing a strategic plan over a 5 year improvement cycle. Participants will leave empowered with two tools that will help shift your school's focus and impact. 

• The Power of Rotation
  Janice Carter, Shorewood
  Ever wonder why all staff and students aren’t clear on the best written expectations? Ever ask yourself what you can possibly do to ensure everyone has the same understanding, so we all work together. In this session, we will discuss the importance of the rotation, where all staff and students know what to do in all areas of the school building, so in moments of crisis or the day to day all parties work together to ensure school happens. There is no content without culture so let’s discuss the steps necessary to make this happen. 

2. If They Can’t Say It, They Can’t Do It: The Power of Clarity in Continuous Improvement
Yaribel Rodriguez, Director of Urban Leadership, AWSA
Leaders often believe they are driving improvement, but a lack of clarity keeps schools stuck in cycles of initiative overload and inconsistent implementation. Drawing on implementation science, change management, and the transformational leadership framework of Anthony Muhammad, this session explores a simple but powerful question: How many people in your building can clearly say what you’re working on—and how? Participants will examine the alignment of their systems, supports, and messaging, and leave with practical strategies to ensure clarity translates into consistent action and measurable impact.

3. Leave It To Us: Building Mutual Accountability and Interdependence in Collaborative Teams
Tammy Gibbons, Director of Professional Learning, AWSA   
This session introduces simple yet powerful sentence stems that help teams hold deeper, more impactful conversations, fostering reflection and action independently without relying on a leader to facilitate, prompt, or direct the discussion.

4. AI-Accelerated Leadership: Deepening Learning and Leading the Work Forward
Steve Behrendt, PhD & Martin Castro, PhD, Germantown School District
This interactive session explores practical ways elementary principals can use AI to deepen learning, both their own and their staffs. Participants will learn how to use NotebookLM, along with the large language model or AI tool of their choice, to streamline workflows, strengthen professional learning communities, and expand leadership capacity. Participants will see how tools like NotebookLM can transform curriculum documents, meeting materials, and instructional resources into learning tools that extend staff development beyond traditional meetings. See real examples of AI being used to move building leaders into the role of lead learners in their buildings. We will also explore ways to automate routine tasks and mobilize information and resources more efficiently, so leaders can focus on what matters most: our students, staff, and community. Building on the Bounded Universe concept shared at SLATE and AI Accelerated Learning from the National School Leaders Conference (NAESP), participants will learn how clear fenceposts, parameters, reference documents, and tone guides help keep AI reliable, ethical, and aligned with their leadership context.

3:45 Personal Time: Catch Up on Communications

5:00 Reception Sponsored by: 

Friday, October 9, 2026

7:00 Optional Fellowship Breakfast

School administrators support the boundless needs of those they lead and serve. But who supports them – especially in ways tending to the heart and spirit?  Join AWSA’s Associate Executive Director, Joe Schroeder, and administrative colleagues from across Wisconsin in this Christian fellowship breakfast option that, now in its sixth year, is proving for many to be an annual highlight of encouragement and assistance for the next leg of the leadership and life journey.

8:00 Breakfast Program

“I Wish Someone Would Have Told Me That!”
Joe Schroeder, Associate Executive Director, AWSA
School leaders face a host of common challenges that can occasionally leave even the most experienced principals feeling stuck, doing the best they know in a demanding job with a high learning curve.  In this 30-minute general session, Joe pairs hard-earned leadership insights with impactful approaches to navigate common problems with greater awareness, confidence, and agility.  Participants will leave with practical and affirming ways to strengthen their own growth and better support the resilience of those they lead.

9:00 Concurrent Sessions Round 4

1. Slowing Down Without Losing Momentum
Beth Houf, Keynote Speaker
Rest isn’t the opposite of leadership. Burnout is.  This presentation is about:

• The fear leaders have of slowing down

• What intentional pacing actually looks like in schools

• Sustainable leadership over heroic leadership

Themes addressed in this session include: Why schools reward urgency but punish exhaustion, How leaders confuse motion with impact, and, Recovery as a leadership responsibility. And, you will walk away with the tools to audit what actually needs your energy, permission to pause without guilt, and, build rhythms instead of sprints.

2. Pardon the Interruption
Tammy Gibbons, Director of Professional Learning, AWSA  

Leadership is filled with constant interruptions, but what if those moments were opportunities rather than obstacles? In this session, participants will reflect on how daily disruptions can serve as catalysts for growth and service in schools. Drawing on 2022 research showing that 73% of people feel overwhelmed by interruptions, we’ll examine the biggest productivity distractors and strategies for setting boundaries that balance focus with meaningful connection.

3. From Isolation to Collective Efficacy: Learning Together to Impact All Students
Yaribel Rodriguez, Director of Urban Leadership, AWSA

Collective efficacy, our shared belief that we can ensure high levels of learning for all students, is one of the most powerful drivers of student success. Yet in many schools, adult practice remains isolated, limiting opportunities to learn from one another and grow together. This session will explore how school leaders can intentionally build a culture of adult learning through vicarious experiences—including instructional rounds, peer observations, and micro-teaching. Participants will examine how “seeing effective practice in action” accelerates teacher growth, strengthens alignment around high-quality instruction, and shifts mindsets from individual autonomy to collective responsibility.

4. Legislative Update
Dee Pettack, Executive Director, SAA
Dee will provide an overview of the Legislative issues of most importance to elementary school leaders.

5. “I Wish Someone Would Have Told Me That!” – Exploring and Applying Impactful Tools and Approaches to Common Leadership Challenges
Joe Schroeder, Associate Executive Director, AWSA
In this 75-minute concurrent session, which extends the previous breakfast general session learning, you will explore actionable ways to move forward amid real-world challenges that can stall leadership growth and impact.  Building on decades of experience, Joe unpacks common developmental dilemmas and guides participants through a bank of relevant and practical strategies, tools, and resources to address them.  Attendees will engage with these resources to build personal capacity, improve decision-making, and effectively support others.  Overall, this interactive session will equip you with tangible methods to get “unstuck” and apply new learning directly to daily work across a host of common leadership challenges.

10:30 Closing Keynote 

From Surviving to Thriving as a School Leaders
Beth Houf

In a field of serving others, how often do we take time to take care of ourselves? Join Beth as she shares productivity and wellness practices to help us not only survive, but to thrive as school leaders.

Beth Houf is the proud principal of Capital City High School in Jefferson City, Missouri, and the co-author of Lead Like a PIRATE: Make School Amazing for Your Students and Staff. Entering her 18th year in the principalship, Beth has served at the elementary, middle, and high school levels, providing her with a unique and comprehensive perspective. She is dedicated to leveraging the voices of students and staff to transform educational practices, ensuring equity, access, and belonging for all. Beth is actively involved in local, state, and national principal associations and has served as an adjunct professor at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. Her work has been featured in prominent publications such as The Washington Post, EdWeek, and NPR.

11:45 Adjourn