Thousands take part in Annual Conference 

More than 4,000 school board members, administrators, students and others involved in public education gathered at CSBA’s Annual Education Conference and Trade Show in San Diego Nov. 29–Dec. 1 for courageous conversations about the complex challenges facing California students and their schools.

In large general sessions and smaller workshops, clinics and table talks, in corridors and coffee shops, conference participants tackled issues affecting student achievement such as race, poverty and the looming state budget deficit. Conference presenters and participants also shared effective strategies for overcoming the complex and sometimes daunting obstacles that can make it difficult for schools to do their jobs effectively.

“The 2007 Conference Committee built an outstanding program around this year’s theme, ‘Courageous Conversations and Our Community,’” said CSBA Immediate Past President Kathy Kinley, whose term as president ended at the conference’s close. “As schools have been presented with greater challenges in recent years, it is clear that entire communities must collaborate in conversations around the well-being of children. School board members and governance teams must be part of those conversations, and this year’s conference provided attendees with the tools they need to be leaders in their own communities.”

One of the most courageous conversations was unexpected and off the record. Having promised that 2008 would be “the Year of Education,” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made a special last-minute visit to San Diego to discuss the expanding state deficit and its potential impact on school reform with CSBA officers and other leaders of the Education Coalition.

During the informal meeting, educators “wound up having probably one of the most interesting conversations I’ve had the pleasure of having with this or any other governor,” said CSBA Executive Director Scott P. Plotkin, who hosted the gathering. (See related story on page 1.)

This year’s conference attracted an array of school leaders, including representatives from more than half of California’s school districts and county offices of education. As is becoming an annual tradition, the conference trade show had another record-breaking year, featuring more than 300 vendors from education organizations, public agencies, product and service suppliers, and labor and trade groups.

The conference included a number of new features this year, including a 5K fun run and walk, a school site visit to San Dieguito High Academy and the inaugural Juanita Haugen Memorial Lecture on Civic Education, named for the 1996–97 CSBA president and longtime member of the Pleasanton Unified School District board.

Seeking survival and “happyness”

General Session speakers Mark Salzman and Christopher Gardner shared inspiring and sometimes harrowing real-life experiences. Salzman, author of “True Notebooks,” described his years working with troubled youths at the Los Angeles juvenile detention center while they awaited trial on serious felony charges, including murder.
Salzman said that although he was initially intimidated by his hardened students and depressed that most faced dismal futures, he was astonished by their talent from the day he walked into his first class. “I never spent one day teaching writing,” said Salzman, who read aloud samples of his students’ moving and beautifully crafted poems, letters and essays. “What they needed most was a mentor, a role model—an adult who believed in them.”

The dismal prospects Gardner faced as a young man were his own, and he shared the story of his triumph over them at the conference’s Second General Session. His autobiography, “The Pursuit of Happyness,” was made into a feature movie starring Will Smith.

A single parent with no money, no college education and no home, Gardner still managed to become a financial analyst and stock broker. Having grown up without a father, he vowed never to abandon his children—even when it meant bringing his infant son with him to sleep in homeless shelters and public restrooms when the pair had no other shelter.

“The most important thing I’ve ever done in my life is to be there” for his son, he said. “I broke the cycle of men who were not there for their children.”

Other conference speakers included political scientist and commentator Sherry Bebitch Jeffe; Ted Mitchell, chair of the Governor’s Committee on Education Excellence; state Education Secretary Dave Long; Assembly member Jean Fuller, R-Bakersfield; and state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell.

Ringing endorsements

Dozens of school board members, administrators and teachers traveled to San Diego on the closing day of the conference to pick up their Golden Bell Awards and showcase their programs at special table talk sessions. This CSBA program honors exemplary K–12 programs at an awards luncheon that celebrates the many creative strategies that are working in California schools across the state.

“Golden Bells are coveted by school districts and county offices of education because they recognize programs that are making a difference in the lives of students and communities,” said Education Conference Coordinator Kristy Bird Trouchon. “These awards are especially meaningful to school boards, administrators and teachers because they come from their colleagues in education.” 

Related link:

• Download materials from Annual Conference presentations @ www.csba.org.