National Summit on Improvement in Education 2025: Full Schedule

Please share your Spring Summit feedback while your thoughts and experience are fresh. We truly appreciate you taking the time to help us improve.

9:00am PDT

1M-From Compliance to Connection: Cultivating Relational Trust to Drive Improvement

Monday March 31, 2025 9:00am - 10:30am PDT

High Tech High International Room 219

Explore the role of relational trust in transforming leadership and fostering system-wide improvement. In this session, led by New Tech Network and Hardin County District leaders, learn how district leaders utilized improvement science tools to help foster relational trust and shift from directive leadership approaches to fostering vulnerability, inquiry, and collaboration in their system. Participants will explore research around relational trust, engage in relationship-building activities and practice feedback protocols that supported trust-building within the district. Reflect and share your own experiences, then consider how to apply these strategies to strengthen relationships and support continuous improvement in your own work.

Celebrate and push on the work: Give feedback on this session.

Speakers

Kim Frankel Marsh

District Community and Network Design Specialist, New Tech Network

Kim Frankel Marsh serves as a District Community and Network Design Specialist for the New Tech Network where she uses tools and habits from improvement science to support district-level leadership development and systems change . Prior to joining NTN, she spent 20 years on school... Read More →

Tanya Jury

Director of High School Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment, Hardin County Schools

Dr. Tanya Jury graduated with a broadcasting degree from Western Kentucky University. After graduating with a Bachelors in Broadcasting and Political Science, Tanya worked in the media at various Louisville TV stations and local radio stations for five years before changing careers... Read More →

Brandy New

Director of Innovation, Hardin County Schools, KY

Brandy started education as an elementary classroom teacher, then Instructional Technology Coordinator and high school Computer Science teacher, before taking on the role of Director of Innovation in 2020. She has spent her entire career in Hardin County Schools in Ky, which she also... Read More →

Monday March 31, 2025 9:00am - 10:30am PDT
High Tech High International Room 219

Sessions

Strand Leadership and Field Building
Areas of Focus Leadership actions
Target Audience County or state level leaders, District leaders, Network leaders, School leaders, Teachers

11:00am PDT

2J-Data that Works: Effective Data Systems for School Improvement

Monday March 31, 2025 11:00am - 12:30pm PDT

High Tech High International Room 219

Are you confident that every improver on your team has access to the data systems they need and uses them as effectively as they can? Neither were we, which is why we’ve spent the past eight years building data tools for school improvement and sharing them with our partners. Come to our session to practice using a Data for Improvement Maturity Framework to assess your own data systems and identify a way to strengthen them. You’ll hear stories directly from our partner districts. You’ll also see our flagship tool, the Data Hub, and hear where we’re taking it next.

Improvers 💜 data: Complete the Session Survey.

Speakers

Blake Garfinkle

Growth Product Manager, CT RISE Network

I'd love to chat about all things data for school improvement.I'm dedicated to bringing powerful, actionable data tools to educators and schools to drive student success. For 7 years I have worked with educators and RISE to hone our data tools and processes. In our session, we will... Read More →

Kristin Schmitz

Director of School Improvement, Norwalk Public Schools

Chris Lewine

Chief of Data Strategy and Product Innovation, CT RISE Network

Alan Thorne

Product Manager, CT RISE Network

Alan is the Product Manager at the RISE Network where he leads the development of the RISE Data Hub, a data platform that helps educators collaborate and support student success. A long-time data and IT leader, Alan has worked in- and with dozens of schools across the Northeast to... Read More →

Monday March 31, 2025 11:00am - 12:30pm PDT
High Tech High International Room 219

Sessions

Strand Leadership and Field Building
Areas of Focus On-track to graduate K-12, Scale or spread practices, Leadership actions
Target Audience District leaders, Network leaders, School leaders, Teachers, County or state level leaders, Policy makers, Technical assistance providers

1:45pm PDT

3K-Leading Instructional Improvement: Building an Infrastructure for Equity in Classrooms

Monday March 31, 2025 1:45pm - 3:15pm PDT

High Tech High International Room 219

This session addresses the infrastructure that leaders must cultivate to sustain system-wide instructional improvement. With an evergreen aim to reduce variation in the quality of instruction students experience–both within and across classrooms–we will share our approach to shifting how building and district leaders think and act within their systems. Core principles include creating a shared definition of equitable and adaptive instruction, leveling power structures, reversing the flow of feedback, lowering the stakes for engaging in real-time improvement work, providing practical support for collaborative learning through teacher teams, and changing beliefs about teachers, about students, about data, and about improvement.

Celebrate and push on the work: Give feedback on this session.

Speakers

Andrew Volkert

Partners for Educational Leadership

Isobel Stevenson

Rydell Harrison

Tom Nobili

Monday March 31, 2025 1:45pm - 3:15pm PDT
High Tech High International Room 219

Sessions

Strand Leadership and Field Building
Areas of Focus Equity Diversity and Belonging, Leadership actions
Target Audience Teachers, District leaders, Network leaders, School leaders, Researchers

9:00am PDT

4H-Designing for High Engagement: Balancing Structure & Agency in Improvement Networks

Tuesday April 1, 2025 9:00am - 10:30am PDT

High Tech High International Room 219

Building a meaningful experience for network members is a pressing challenge for leaders who support networked improvement. Whether or not educators are told to participate in an improvement network, they voluntarily engage at variable levels. This session provides an overview of lessons learned from the Network Health Study about strategies leaders used to design participation structures that support member engagement. Leaders will grapple with how to balance structure and agency in their work and learn about a tool to measure how individuals value network participation.

Improvers 💜 data: Complete the Session Survey.

Speakers

Jennifer Sherer

Project Lead, Partners for Network Improvement

Jennifer Russell

Project Lead, Partners for Network Improvement

Angel Li

Associate, Impact Lab, Carnegie Foundation

I am an associate on the Impact Lab team at the Carnegie Foundation, supporting teams and networks in leveraging data and analytics for continuous improvement and system transformation. Prior to joining the Foundation, I worked for Denver Public Schools as an innovation and improvement... Read More →

Tuesday April 1, 2025 9:00am - 10:30am PDT
High Tech High International Room 219

Sessions

Strand Methods of Improvement
Areas of Focus Networks, Routines and structures for social learning
Target Audience District leaders, Network leaders, School leaders, Technical assistance providers