Annual Conference: Help, advice for tough fiscal times
Published: January 1, 2011
School board members, administrators and others involved in public education flocked to CSBA’s Annual Education Conference and Trade Show in San Francisco Dec. 2–4 for insights to help them cope with mounting fiscal challenges and exacting demands for student performance.
The crowd of more than 4,000 represented the best turnout in several years. Over three days, attendees filled the meeting rooms and exhibit halls at Moscone Center to listen to almost 200 presentations in the areas of budget and finance; community, communication and collaboration; emerging trends in education; leadership through governance; student achievement; and technology.
Pre-conference workshops for newly elected and experienced board members drew record crowds. The Orientation for New Trustees alone drew almost 300 of the more than 500 board members who were newly elected or appointed this November.
Each conference event—from General Sessions with keynote speakers to smaller presentations with guided discussions—was filled with positive energy.
“People understood that this year, more than ever, the content was critical to their having the options and information they need to govern effectively,” said Annual Education Conference Coordinator Deanna Fernandes, who attributed much of the success to the vision of the conference planning committee.
“We had a real coup in our speaker configuration,” Fernandes continued, citing the committee’s hard work to ensure that the session topics were relevant to local school governance leaders striving for excellence in the public schools they lead.
Headliners and breakout sessions
Nationally known education experts Pedro Noguera and Ian Jukes headlined the General Sessions. In an Annual Conference first, they each led smaller follow-up sessions after their main talks. Those breakout sessions proved to be a popular way for conference-goers to engage with the speakers and learn more about their messages.
The smaller presentations also featured many other distinguished speakers. The Economic Policy Institute’s Richard Rothstein, a former New York Times columnist on education issues, spoke about the upcoming reauthorization of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act, for example; cutting-edge technology expert Jim Spellos led several sessions where he helped familiarize participants with various Internet tools; and Joe Johnson of the National Center for Urban School Transformation shared the key characteristics of top-performing schools.
After a summer of budget cuts and a challenging leadership transition at CSBA, Interim Executive Director Jeff Vaca said during the opening General Session, the conference and its opportunity for renewal represent “the best of times” for CSBA.
Face-to-face with CSBA’s board
In another conference first, members of CSBA’s Board of Directors kept scheduled hours on the trade show floor to meet with conference-goers and answer questions or simply explain how CSBA is governed.
“I thought it was a great opportunity to talk with the membership,” said Region 10 Director Susan Markarian, who reported she was able to clear up misconceptions about the way the Board of Directors is selected: “We explained the process and that the delegates within each region have their own culture for filling the position.”
Region 9 Director Chris Ungar said that being available to talk about general education topics and specific concerns at the local level was a positive experience.
“I got to meet some folks that I wouldn’t have otherwise gotten to know,” Ungar said. “I would absolutely recommend that we do it again in San Diego,” when CSBA’s 2011 Annual Conference meets there next December.
As usual, association staff members were on hand in the CSBA Pavilion to answer questions about the association’s products and services, such as how to use CSBA’s popular Agenda Online and Manual Maintenance services. Nearly 200 exhibitors, including members of CSBA’s Business Affiliates program, created a lively atmosphere between sessions while they demonstrated the services they provide to make it easier for schools to fulfill their educational mission.
Practical, accessible
Several other new features were introduced to make the conference program as accessible and practical as possible for busy board members. A series of in-service training workshops, for example—held right on the trade show floor, next to the CSBA Pavilion—demonstrated how to use social media, such as CSBA’s Facebook page and Twitter feed.
With such instant communication channels quickly establishing themselves in business and popular culture as well as education, CSBA used those media to report out from Delegate Assembly and the Annual Conference.
A robust “Twitter-scape” has yet to develop at the Annual Conference, but some participants did connect with each other using CSBA’s Twitter hashtag, #csbaaec, to share what they were hearing in various presentations.
One of the most prolific was John Gordon, a board member in the Galt Joint Union Elementary School District, who has experienced the potential of using Twitter at conferences to hold simultaneous “conversations” with other workshop participants. The medium can even be used to “eavesdrop” on other sessions, he said.
Twitter also provides a useful electronic record that will help him report what he learned at the conference: “It’s a library of notes I can refer to, with nuggets I’ll share at my board meeting,” Gordon said.
Seth Rosenblatt, a board member in the San Carlos School District who blogs regularly, wrote that he “find[s] the conference very valuable as it’s a chance to think ‘big picture’ about what we’re doing in education, where we can improve, and what best practices we can learn from others. … In many ways the conference is both a celebration of public education (and a reminder of why we all do this) as well as a time to look at the direction we’re going in and see how we can serve young people better in the future.”
One unmistakable lesson from the San Francisco gathering is that the future comes quickly. With that in mind, CSBA’s Fernandes said she is preparing to issue the call soon for workshop proposals for the 2011 Annual Conference in San Diego.
Easy link: