Small Learning Community National Conference 2008
Small Learning Community National Conference
This national conference is NOT affiliated with the USDOE/OESE SLC Program or with the technical assistance provided through its contract with the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory's Recreating Secondary Schools Program. All activities will be underwritten by registration fees and contributions by other participating organizations and businesses.
Ako Kambon
Keynote, Monday, June 23, 2008, 8:00 a.m.
Understanding, Reaching, and Teaching Today's Students
This keynote will lay the foundation for understanding today's youth and why educators respond as they do. In addition, this keynote will help each participant better understand how to motivate these students to achieve more than even the students think possible. At the conclusion of the keynote each participant will have a series of practical solutions to employ under various conditions.
President of Visionary Leaders Institute, Mr. Kambon is a proven leader in the fields of educational teambuilding and strategies to improve urban school districts.
Mr. Kambon is a strong advocate for the establishment of policies, programs, and procedures that engage parents in the education of their children. For four years, Mr. Kambon held the position of Executive Administrator of the Ohio Commission on African American Males. While at the commission, Mr. Kambon founded a school for troubled young African American males who were removed from their assigned public schools.
Donna Scribner
Keynote, Tuesday, June 24, 2008, 12:00 p.m.
Finding the Passion, Maintaining the Vision
The move to create small learning communities is not always an easy one. Sometimes finding the passion is not enough; maintaining the vision and creating a systemic change in a school culture is often much more difficult. As professional educators, we are all used to innovations and reforms seem to come and then go. How can we make the creation of small learning communities part of the culture of our school, not just a temporary reform? Are the promised benefits of small learning communities backed by research? What parallels can be drawn between the restructuring of schools and migration theory? Dr. Scribner will lead the group in answering these questions, as well as sharing a few stories of schools that have made systemic and cultural changes in their schools through the use of small learning communities.
Dr. Donna E. Scribner has more than 30 years of experience in education, as a teacher and in the development and delivery of professional development. Her passion for taking student education from an 18th century model to a 21st century model brought her to Virtual High School (VHS) where, as the Chief Learning Officer, she is responsible for overseeing VHS's online curriculum for students and professional development for teachers. A seasoned conference speaker, she frequently addresses groups on the effective use of technology in the mathematics and engineering curricula, creating instructional environments that support a student's motivation to engage and persist in learning and has conducted professional development workshops for teachers all over the country.
LaShawn Route Chatmon
Keynote, Tuesday, June 24, 2008, 8:00 a.m.
Transforming Comprehensive High School: Lessons learned about conditions, practice, and equity
The ways a school and/or school system organizes its resources (time, people, money, space) to address the achievement gap is the precursor to engaging in specific conversations about the ways race, class, and culture both hinder and inform how we increase access, opportunity, and achievement options for historically underserved students. Only through the purposeful construction of evolved conditions, dialogues, and practices can new solutions to old challenges emerge. In this address we will share key lessons learned about small learning community development and what any of it has to do with equity!
LaShawn Route Chatmon is the Executive Director for the Bay Area Coalition for Equitable Schools (BayCES), an organization committed to dramatically improving the outcomes, experiences, and life options for students underserved by their schools and districts. Formerly the Director of the Oakland High Schools Redesign Initiative for BayCES, LaShawn and her colleagues supported the incubation and development of over 40 small schools and learning communities across the Bay Area, and launched one of the most transformative district redesign initiatives in the country. A California native and recipient of public school education, LaShawn earned her undergraduate degree from the University of California at Berkeley and a masters degree from Brown University. With more than 15 years of working in and on high schools, she has been a formidable advocate, teacher, and leader. In her last school assignment she served as a faculty member at Berkeley High School. While at Berkeley High School, LaShawn worked with Dr. Pedro Noguera, as co-director of the Diversity Project, a research and education reform effort in collaboration with the University of California at Berkeley. The Diversity Project addressed the ways in which racial inequality manifested itself in the high school. Members of the Project, which included teachers, parents, and students, as well as graduate student researchers and classified staff, were motivated by the belief that research combined with concentrated organizing efforts and interventions would ameliorate the racial disparity and promote equitable outcomes for all students.