CAS Annual Conference 2025

Participants will be able to look at data through a storytelling lens and formulate 3 key questions to identify what barriers they would need to remove to improve the data. For the purpose of this session we will focus on how one district created a culture of inclusion and belonging which led to improved student academic growth. The audience will learn how the district decided to take a different approach to looking at data to successfully identify the barriers that were keeping them from improving. This led to how they developed structures and put systems in place to implement them and saw how their targeted efforts delivered results almost immediately! 

In this presentation, attendees will explore essential ingredients necessary to foster a safe, inclusive, and positive environment. We will explore leadership habits that promote vibrancy as well as leadership characteristics that are detrimental. The session will highlight the importance of relationships centered on trust, transparency, collaboration, and care. Anecdotal evidence and survey data will be shared as indicators of success. The presentation will be interactive with questions, role-plays, and simulations to elicit relevant dialogue and discussion.

We all believe in supporting the whole child – academically, socially, emotionally, physically, and behaviorally – but how can we strengthen our systems to promote more coordinated and integrated practices? One approach is to leverage the CDC’s Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model as an organizing framework. In this workshop, attendees will develop a foundational understanding of the WSCC model; consider opportunities to strengthen teaming structures, goal setting, and data collection; and identify the next steps for whole child strategic planning in their setting. This workshop will feature a panel discussion with administrators from the Colchester Public Schools and East Hartford Public Schools to share key lessons learned from using the WSCC model to strengthen their school and district practices.

For better or worse cell phones have revolutionized daily life and schools are no exception.  The use of cell phone by students both in the school setting and beyond it poses a host of unique legal issues that the courts and legislators are still catching up with.

In this session our presenters will review the latest case law addressing cell phone search and seizure, student First Amendment rights, sexting/mandated reporting, use of cell phone data at disciplinary hearings, district bans on cell phones during the school day as well as other issues.  By examining real cases in detail administrators will gain a practical understanding of the "do's and dont's" of student cell phones along with a sneak preview of emerging areas in the law.