CALSA's Summer Institute 2026

AI is arriving in our schools whether we are ready or not. For superintendents leading predominantly Latino communities, the urgency is not just operational. It is personal. Our students deserve the same access to the tools shaping the future as any student anywhere in this country, and it is our responsibility as leaders to make sure they get it.


This session presents a district-wide AI Leadership Blueprint developed and implemented inside West Covina Unified School District, a San Gabriel Valley community of 7,800 students, where 73% of students are Latino, and 83% are on Free and Reduced Lunch. Every element of this Blueprint was built from the ground up, through deliberate, strategic, and personally led work that reached every corner of the district, from the boardroom to the classroom, from the front office to the family workshop.


Participants will explore the full arc of implementation: establishing board governance that gives AI work a legal and ethical foundation, aligning cabinet and site leadership around a shared vision, designing teacher professional learning that is self-directed and job-embedded, engaging classified and support staff as full partners in the work, reaching multilingual families with information that builds confidence rather than fear, and developing student AI literacy as a matter of access and equity.


This is not a vendor presentation. There are no products being sold and no perfect district being showcased. This is an honest, practical account of what it takes to lead this work with intention, from a superintendent who believes that when educators have the right tools and conditions to thrive, every student gains access to opportunities that can change the trajectory of their life.


Attendees will leave with a replicable blueprint and a clear path forward.

In this session we will share real-world leadership lessons from a first-year principal and her superintendent mentor. Each lesson highlights a critical leadership move, the mentor action that made it possible, and a practical artifact participants can take back to their sites. While grounded in the experience of a new principal, these lessons are applicable to leaders at any stage who are stepping into new roles or navigating new challenges.
The session also highlights how intentional mentorship accelerates leadership readiness through real-time coaching, accountability, and strategic guidance during critical decision-making moments. Participants will explore how a structured mentor–mentee partnership supports leaders in navigating complexity with confidence while also serving as a scalable model for building leadership capacity across a school or district. By strengthening systems of support, this approach reduces the isolation often experienced by leaders in transition and creates pathways for developing future leaders through intentional, relational practices.

This session highlights how the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) developed and implemented a countywide strategy to support school districts serving students and families impacted by changes in immigration policy. Central to this effort was the creation of a cross-division Immigration Taskforce, which brought together leaders from student services, mental health, legal counsel, and community partnerships to design a coordinated, rapid-response system of support. The taskforce aligned messaging, resources, and training priorities to ensure consistency across all 80 school districts in Los Angeles County.
Through this structure, LACOE launched a comprehensive training initiative delivered virtually and in community-based settings to educators, families, and community partners. Using tools such as Supporting School Staff: A Multi-Tiered Guide to Immigration-Related Stress and Legal Protections for Immigrant Students , the county provided guidance on staff wellbeing, student rights, trauma-informed practices, and school responsibilities under current laws. These trainings were intentionally designed to be accessible, culturally responsive, and grounded in real-time policy updates.
The strategy also centered student engagement and empowerment. Schools implemented student-facing lessons, peer-led discussions, and informational campaigns to ensure students understood their right to a public education regardless of immigration status and felt equipped to advocate for themselves and their families.
By leveraging cross-sector collaboration, community partnerships, and a multi-tiered system of supports, LACOE created a scalable, equity-centered model that strengthens school systems, builds trust with families, and ensures safe, inclusive learning environments during times of uncertainty.

Vallejo City Unified School District (VCUSD) faced a compounding crisis marked by deep budget reductions, staff layoffs, school closures, and stagnant student achievement data. During this period of heightened anxiety for staff, students, and families, district leadership made a deliberate and consequential choice: to lead with radical transparency rather than minimize or obscure the challenges.


In this session, the Superintendent and Director of Communications will share how VCUSD stabilized and reshaped its organizational culture during systemic disruption by pairing honest communication with a clear, student-centered decision-making framework. Central to this approach was the introduction of “Think VCUSD First”—not as a slogan, but as a system-wide lens guiding leadership, management, and daily practice.


Presenters will highlight how, through aligned leadership and intentional messaging, accountability was reframed from a top-down mandate into a shared responsibility rooted in student outcomes. This shift enabled the district to move from a culture of fear and scarcity toward one of collective commitment and purpose.


Attendees will leave with practical strategies for leading through fiscal crisis, aligning middle management, and maintaining community trust—while keeping students at the center of every decision.

This session highlights Centralia Elementary School District (CESD)'s CSBA Golden Bell Award-winning program, Student Attendance Support Re-imagined: A Restorative SARB to Re-engage Students, which reduced chronic absenteeism by nearly 50% in just one year.
Chronic absenteeism is often treated as a compliance issue, but at CESD, it became an opportunity to redesign systems around relationships, equity, and community. Following a significant post-pandemic rise in absenteeism, CESD shifted from punitive approaches to a restorative, family-centered model that addresses the root causes of student absence. Grounded in Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) and informed by Harvard’s Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family-School Partnerships, the program emphasizes early identification through real-time data, culturally responsive family engagement, and cross-sector collaboration with community partners, health providers, and social services.
Participants will learn how CESD built an integrated system that removes barriers such as housing instability, mental health needs, transportation challenges, and access to basic resources. Innovative strategies—including multilingual outreach, home visits, a District Neighborhood Resource Center, and creative solutions like the “Rain or Shine” toolkit—demonstrate how small, intentional actions can lead to significant impact.
This session will also elevate the voices of families and community partners, illustrating how trust, empathy, and collaboration lead to improved attendance, student well-being, and academic outcomes. Attendees will leave with practical strategies and a replicable framework to transform attendance systems into inclusive, community-driven supports that ensure every student is present, engaged, and thriving.

This session invites school administrators and their educational partners to explore how policy, governance, and system-level decision-making shape powerful Expanded Learning Opportunities Programs (ELO-P). Grounded in a whole-child approach, participants will examine how ELO-P can be strategically aligned with Early Learning, Multilingual Learners (MLL), Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), Community Schools, and Special Education (SPED) to better serve culturally and linguistically diverse students.
Attendees will unpack key compliance components, including alignment to LCAP, SPSA, and ELO-P requirements, while centering student engagement, belonging, and equitable access. The session will also provide timely updates on legislation, fiscal policies, and funding structures, offering practical strategies for navigating budget constraints without compromising program quality or student outcomes.
Through a spotlight on a local LEA, participants will see how continuous quality improvement (CQI) practices and cross-functional collaboration can drive coherence across systems and improve outcomes for unduplicated pupils (UPPs).
Participants will leave with actionable insights to strengthen organizational alignment, advocate for sustainable programming, and lead with a systems-level lens that honors the assets, identities, and needs of Latino students and their communities.

Federal Program Monitoring (FPM) is often experienced as a high-stakes, compliance-driven process that can overwhelm systems, fragment ownership across departments, and pull leaders away from instructional priorities. This session shares how one district reimagined its FPM approach by integrating artificial intelligence (AI) within a broader system of distributed leadership, clear structures, and cross-department collaboration. Participants will learn how AI was strategically leveraged to streamline evidence development, draft responses to auditor feedback, organize large volumes of documentation, and increase efficiency without compromising accuracy or compliance. Beyond the tools themselves, the session highlights the leadership moves that made this work sustainable, including the development of centralized trackers, defined roles and responsibilities, structured communication cycles, and ongoing support systems for site and district teams. Grounded in real examples from a completed FPM cycle, this session will demonstrate how leaders can shift from reactive compliance to proactive system design—building coherence, reducing operational burden, and creating greater capacity to focus on student outcomes and equitable access.

This session highlights a powerful student-centered approach to advancing awareness of educational rights through youth leadership and advocacy. Led by Fredy Ruiz, Immigrant Relations Coordinator, this initiative equips students with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to understand their rights and educate their peers—particularly in the context of changing immigration policies and their impact on school communities. Grounded in resources such as Legal Protections for Immigrant Students , students engage in structured learning experiences that build their understanding of key laws, protections, and school responsibilities.
Through this model, students are not only recipients of information but become leaders and advocates on their campuses. Participants will learn how students are trained to develop and deliver presentations on educational rights, using accessible language and peer-to-peer strategies that increase engagement and trust. The session will also highlight how students design and implement advocacy projects tailored to their school communities—ranging from awareness campaigns and resource guides to student-led workshops and safe space initiatives.
This work centers student voice, agency, and culturally responsive leadership, while also strengthening school climate and fostering a sense of belonging. By empowering students to lead this work, schools create sustainable systems of peer education and advocacy that extend beyond traditional adult-led approaches.
Attendees will leave with practical tools and replicable strategies to implement student empowerment models that build knowledge, leadership, and advocacy capacity among students, particularly those from immigrant and mixed-status families.