Conference Details

As school districts continue adopting policies related to artificial intelligence, many administrators are now asking an important question: What does implementation actually look like in practice?

This interactive session for school and district leaders will learn about how districts are moving beyond policy and guidance into classroom practice. Drawing on resources and statewide learning from Michigan Virtual’s AI Lab and Michigan’s Statewide AI Workgroup, the session will focus on the leadership decisions, guidance, and systems needed to support responsible AI use.

Participants will discuss common implementation challenges, including staff expectations, student use, handbook guidance, instructional practices, communication, oversight, and alignment with local district context. The session will include facilitated discussion, practical examples, collaborative problem-solving, and work time designed to help administrators identify next steps for their own districts.

In its November 2025 LRE guidance, the Michigan Office of Special Education identifies principals as the “linchpin” in ensuring effective implementation of special education services. This session explores how administrators can strengthen communication, prevent conflict, and maintain compliance while supporting both staff and families. Participants will learn how Special Education Mediation Services (SEMS) can support collaborative, student-centered IEP processes through facilitation, mediation, and practical communication strategies.

School leaders are not short on time, they are often misaligned in how their time is used. Between constant interruptions, reactive demands, and fragmented schedules, even the most capable leaders struggle to prioritize the work that matters most. This session focuses on how leaders can reclaim time, protect focus, and align daily actions with strategic priorities. Participants will explore practical ways to redesign their week, reduce inefficiencies, and create space for high-impact work that strengthens teaching, learning, and culture.

Participants will leave with:

• A framework for structuring their “ideal week”
• Practical routines to reduce interruptions and increase focus
• Strategies to align time with priorities, not just urgency
• Immediate next steps to reclaim control of their schedule

The high-level session topics include:

1. Safe Learning Spaces (Seclusion & Restraint reduction / Kent/SEILN MAISA)

2. Specially Designed Instruction

3. Child Find

In this session, school leaders will learn how to quickly access and use key demographic and performance data to drive meaningful, student-centered decisions. Discover insights on enrollment, mobility, graduation, assessments, and more—plus get hands-on with the new Report Builder, Compare Tool and the Education Entity Profile features.

Walk away ready to leverage data with confidence and build a more responsive, flourishing school community.

Schools often focus on the issues that are easiest to measure, manage, or discuss publicly, while deeper challenges remain unaddressed. This session helps leaders identify where avoidance, comfort, or fragmented attention may be limiting staff engagement, belonging, and growth. Participants will explore how to create conditions for honest dialogue, move beyond surface-level conversations, and address the issues that matter most to building a thriving school culture.

Participants will leave with:

• An understanding of how avoidance impacts culture and trust
• Strategies to surface difficult issues without creating defensiveness
• Tools to distinguish between comfort and psychological safety
• Practical approaches to leading honest, productive conversation

In its November 2025 LRE guidance, the Michigan Office of Special Education identifies principals as the “linchpin” in ensuring effective implementation of special education services. This session explores how administrators can strengthen communication, prevent conflict, and maintain compliance while supporting both staff and families. Participants will learn how Special Education Mediation Services (SEMS) can support collaborative, student-centered IEP processes through facilitation, mediation, and practical communication strategies.

The high-level session topics include:

1. Safe Learning Spaces (Seclusion & Restraint reduction / Kent/SEILN MAISA)

2. Specially Designed Instruction

3. Child Find

This session will focus on supporting administrators in unifying staff and putting the whole MTSS Framework together in service of reducing disruptive or unproductive behaviors throughout your school.

Explore the next generation of the Michigan Early Warning and Intervention Monitoring System (MiEWIMS), now securely and efficiently powered by the MiGreatDataLake (MiGDL) platform. This session will provide Michigan principals and superintendents with a clear understanding of the enhanced data visualization capabilities. Learn how the new, user-centered dashboards enable immediate, data-driven decisions for your Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) framework, ensuring earlier and more effective intervention for at-risk students and ultimately driving improved student success.

In this session, school leaders will learn how to quickly access and use key demographic and performance data to drive meaningful, student-centered decisions. Discover insights on enrollment, mobility, graduation, assessments, and more—plus get hands-on with the new Report Builder, Compare Tool and the Education Entity Profile features.

Walk away ready to leverage data with confidence and build a more responsive, flourishing school community.

Student Engagement: The condition that occurs when learning is the unavoidable by-product of a desired activity or process. (Dueck)

When someone truly desires to challenge, question, participate, overcome or even listen, it is quite likely that learning will occur. In this session Myron Dueck will address some leading theories around engagement and will cover a few of the most important portals to conjuring human interest and its by-product – learning. Engagement can occur when any one of following portals exist: ownership, relevance, relationships, expertise and exploration/inquiry.

The tools that educators have at their fingertips center on assessment and instruction, and it is in these realms that we wield underutilized potential and power. By making decisions that increase the key engagement catalysts, teachers can truly change the face of education.