CALSA's Summer Institute 2026

To advance opportunity and create lasting impact for California’s students, we must empower the staff who interact with them most: our campus supervisors. This session offers a meaningful learning experience centered on a proven model that builds the capacity of campus safety personnel.
Rooted in the belief that authentic community-building begins with the staff, we demonstrate how the cultural practice of sharing a meal creates the psychological safety necessary for honest dialogue and shared leadership. By "calendaring" regular meeting times and formalizing incident debriefs, administrators can move beyond reactive management to a proactive system that addresses inequities and elevates and empowers support staff.
Participants will engage in planning high-leverage role-play scenarios and practice assertive, PBIS-aligned redirection that balances authority with support. This session provides a scalable blueprint for building a unified team that "covers each other," ensuring that every student feels safe, seen, and supported by a highly-skilled, empowered supervision team.

This powerful and reflective presentation centers on one essential truth: principals matter, deeply and measurably, in the success of schools. Designed for educational leaders, the session elevates the role of the principal from manager to transformative leader, highlighting how their actions shape school culture, teacher effectiveness, and ultimately, student outcomes.
Grounded in research and real-world leadership experiences, this session emphasizes that principals are second only to classroom instruction among school-based factors influencing student achievement . Participants will explore how effective principals can accelerate student learning by several months within a single school year and create conditions where both adults and students thrive .
Through engaging visuals, stories, and structured reflection, the presentation examines the principal’s role in building a strong instructional focus, fostering a positive school climate, and developing collaborative, high-performing teams. It also highlights how leadership decisions impact teacher retention, professional growth, and overall school improvement.
Participants will be invited to reflect on their own leadership practices and consider how they influence culture, expectations, and outcomes across their campuses. The session balances inspiration with practical application, offering actionable strategies that leaders can immediately implement.
This presentation is both affirming and challenging—reminding leaders of the profound influence they hold and equipping them to lead with clarity, purpose, and impact in today’s complex educational landscape.

This session, Supporting School Staff: A Multi-Tiered Guide to Immigration-Related Stress, equips school and district leaders with practical strategies to address the growing impact of immigration-related stress on educators and school communities. Grounded in a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) framework, the session highlights how immigration policy changes contribute to secondary trauma, disrupted workplace trust, and feelings of helplessness among staff, ultimately affecting school climate and student support systems .
Participants will explore how administrators can proactively build a culture of collective wellness by embedding universal supports into daily practice, such as structured check-ins, community-building circles, and micro-wellness strategies. The session also addresses targeted interventions, including informational workshops and resilience-building opportunities that empower staff with knowledge and coping tools. For staff experiencing acute distress, leaders will learn how to implement intensive supports, including crisis response protocols and referral systems to professional mental health services.
A key focus of the session is clarifying the administrator’s role in supporting staff wellbeing through the “notice, normalize, and refer” approach, while maintaining professional boundaries and psychological safety. Through reflection and discussion, participants will assess their current systems and identify opportunities to strengthen implementation within their school communities.
Ultimately, this session provides actionable, equity-centered strategies to help educational leaders sustain staff wellbeing, foster resilience, and maintain supportive school environments during times of sociopolitical stress.

Join us as we discuss current issues educational institutions face surrounding artificial intelligence, including: (1) The intersection of artificial intelligence with the California Public Records Act; (2) The use of AI-powered notetakers in meetings; and (3) Wearable AI (smart glasses).  We will discuss how to prepare yourself to address these key developments in your agency.

As educational leaders, we are called to be the bridge between generations—honoring the legacy of those before us while preparing to lead the future. This interactive workshop is designed for aspiring and current leaders ready to take the next step in their professional journey, whether transitioning from Principal to Director, Director to Assistant Superintendent, or Assistant Superintendent to Superintendent.


Participants will explore what it truly means to be “ready” for the next level by examining the evolving expectations of leadership across generational contexts. A key focus of this session will include an overview of understanding your individual leadership style and how to intentionally leverage it as a strategic advantage when pursuing advancement. Attendees will reflect on their strengths, identify areas for growth, and learn how to align their leadership approach with the demands of higher-level roles.


The session will also highlight practical strategies for strengthening leadership capacity, cultivating influential networks, and positioning oneself for advancement in an increasingly complex educational landscape. Through guided reflection and collaborative dialogue, participants will develop a personalized action plan aligned to their career goals.


Grounded in the conference theme, “We are the Bridge in between Generations,” this session will empower leaders to embrace their role as connectors—linking vision, experience, and innovation. Both presenters will draw upon over 30 years of experience in education each, culminating in two superintendencies in diverse urban school districts, offering real-world insights and lessons learned.


Participants will leave with actionable tools, renewed clarity, and the confidence to navigate their leadership journey with purpose and impact.

Educational leadership today spans multiple generations of educators, each bringing different perspectives on stress, work-life balance, communication, and self-care. For Latino leaders in particular, these dynamics are often layered with cultural expectations around service, sacrifice, and community responsibility. These differences often surface in workplace conflict, leadership challenges, and varying expectations about professional boundaries and self-care.
From an HR and organizational leadership perspective, many of these challenges often reflect differences in emotional regulation, interpersonal communication, and stress management that emerge when multiple generations work together in the same workplace.
In this session, we will share how educational leaders can better understand and navigate generational differences in workplace stress and mental health. Using the framework of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), participants will focus on four core skill areas 1) mindfulness, 2) distress tolerance, 3) emotion regulation, and 4) interpersonal effectiveness, and apply them to real leadership challenges in schools.
Through the combined perspectives of educational leadership and clinical mental health practice, participants will learn how DBT-informed strategies can strengthen leadership resilience, improve workplace relationships, and create healthier school environments.
Participants will leave with practical tools they can immediately apply to support staff well-being, navigate generational differences, and build more emotionally sustainable leadership practices.

What does equity look like when it is truly embedded in classroom practice? For one district, it meant moving beyond policy statements and compliance to co-create a district Equity Walkthrough Tool for leaders that makes equity visible in every classroom. This tool aligns instructional practices with a shared language of culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogy. It provides a structure for instructional rounds, data collection, and collaborative calibration. District and site leaders first used the tool to develop a common understanding of what rigorous, equitable instruction looks like.
The work did not stop at leadership; administrators empowered teacher leaders to participate in reflective observations, facilitating professional dialogue and building collective ownership of equity-focused instruction. By bridging policy, pedagogy, and practice, the district is strengthening coherence across schools while ensuring that multi-lingual, and other historically underserved student groups remain the focus of improvement efforts. Participants will see how systems level approaches—including instructional rounds and shared calibration—can transform both teaching and leadership to improve student outcomes. The session shares concrete strategies for empowering educators, fostering collaboration, and sustating cutlrually responice practices to at scale. 
Attendees will leave with a replicable framework for making equity actionable, observable, and sustainable. This session demonstrates how educational leaders can partner to build bridges acosss our education system to support leaders, teachers and students, caring forward the equity work to create meaning, lasting impact in school communities.

This session aligns with Policy, Advocacy, and the Bridges That Shape the Future of Public Education by examining how labor relations practices directly reflect and influence district policy, governance, and organizational coherence. Preventing unfair labor practice claims is not only a legal responsibility but a leadership and systems-level function that impacts workplace culture, employee trust, and ultimately student outcomes.


Unfair practice charges can arise quickly—but with the right strategies, many can be prevented. This session will walk attendees through common scenarios that lead to claims and provide practical tools for avoiding missteps. Learn how to navigate challenging labor situations, improve communication with employee organizations, and take proactive steps to reduce risk.