How can school leaders create learning environments where all students thrive, think critically, and engage deeply with challenging content? This interactive session explores how collaborative, cognitively demanding tasks can foster deep learning while promoting equity. Participants will examine research-based strategies that encourage student agency, critical thinking, and problem-solving, with a focus on dismantling barriers created by systemic inequities. School leaders will learn how to support teachers in designing tasks that challenge students intellectually and socially, while embedding inclusivity, student voice, and high expectations. Through hands-on activities, small-group collaboration, and reflective planning, attendees will leave with practical tools to implement school-wide initiatives that cultivate a culture of deep learning and equitable opportunity, empowering all students for success in academics, social development, and post-secondary pathways.

This interactive session explores the power of organizing in education as a critical pathway for youth leadership development and racial equity. Participants will examine how systemic racism limits student voice and civic agency, particularly for Black and Brown students, multilingual learners, and students with disabilities. Grounded in youth organizing principles and culturally sustaining practices, the session highlights how schools and communities can support students as leaders, advocates, and change agents. Through reflection, dialogue, and applied activities, attendees will learn how organizing builds critical thinking, collective power, and leadership skills while fostering belonging and purpose. The session positions organizing not as disruption, but as a necessary educational practice that prepares students for empowered futures.

School leaders are often asked to lead continuous improvement efforts without interrogating how race, gender, and power shape who benefits from change—and who bears its cost. This session invites leaders to rethink improvement through a contextually responsive, intersectional lens grounded in the research of Tamra Simpson and Valery Dragon, as articulated in Beyond the Status Quo. Drawing on empathy interviews with K–12 Black women leaders, the session challenges traditional Kaizen-inspired improvement approaches that prioritize efficiency while overlooking lived experience and systemic inequity. Participants will explore how intersectionality deepens improvement science by making visible the human impact of system design. Through case analysis and applied learning, school leaders will examine the competencies required to lead liberatory improvement—efforts that strengthen outcomes while actively dismantling systemic racism. This session is ideal for principals, district leaders, coaches, and practitioners committed to equity-centered, sustainable change.

This session is designed to strengthen participants' leadership practices by exploring how leaders across CREC implement a racial equity lens at their sites. Drawing from the lived experiences of cross-divisional leaders, the session will highlight that, despite the challenging climate, DEI is not over in our agency or schools/programs, that one size does not fit all, and that differentiated approaches are needed to change systems and move the needle. The session will begin with an overview of CREC's commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion and the structural infrastructure established to deliver on our promise. Participants will reflect on the role leadership plays in advancing DEI, share examples of challenges related to DEI, and discuss how they are implementing a racial equity lens in their day-to-day work. The session will conclude with an opportunity for participants to ask questions.

This session will engage students and educators in a discussion about Latino Educational Leadership in Connecticut. Participants will learn about Latino Critical Theory and how it relates to the representation of Latinx educators in leadership, to the lived experiences of Latinx superintendents specifically, and to strategies that might unite the Latinx community to advocate for more leaders of color and more Latinx leaders specifically. The session will be interactive and will end by asking participants to respond to four recommendations compiled in research (Velazquez, 2025), including strategies for Collective Liberation, Navigating Oppression, a Social Justice Mandate, and Identity-driven, Culturally Grounded Leadership.

For Black students with disabilities, the transition from K–12 education to postsecondary environments is shaped by systemic racism, racialized ableism, and the loss of formal protections. This session explores how educators, families, and community leaders can better support these students by centering equity, dignity, and student voice during critical transition periods. Participants will examine culturally responsive strategies grounded in disability justice that address rights literacy, supported self-advocacy, institutional protection, and identity affirmation. Through interactive discussion and real-world scenarios, the session highlights how dismantling systemic racism in education requires intentional, justice-centered transition practices that empower students rather than expecting assimilation.

This research-based presentation examines how middle school multidisciplinary support teams can leverage the MTSS (Multi-Tiered System of Supports) framework to promote equity, collaboration, and healing-centered practices. Drawing from participatory action research with the incorporation of poetry and conversation, the session explores the role of practitioner wellness, shared power, and culturally responsive collaboration in improving social emotional and behavioral supports for students. Participants will engage in reflective dialogue and interactive discussion to examine how historical MTSS practices may perpetuate inequities and how integrating Transformative SEL and restorative approaches can disrupt these patterns. Designed for school leaders, educators, and support staff, this presentation offers actionable strategies to strengthen MTSS implementation while centering wellness, relational accountability, and antiracist systems change.

Ignorance in equity work doesn't always look like opposition. It often looks like silence, avoidance, assumptions, or "good intentions" without racial literacy or accountability. This interactive breakout session challenges participants to examine how unchecked adult intentions unintentionally uphold systemic racism and impede student success across academics, social development, special education referrals, and family engagement. Through reflection protocols, real system snapshots, and powerful student voice narratives, attendees will learn to identify hidden equity barriers and apply practical disruption strategies that empower students rather than hinder them. Participants will engage in collaborative practice audits, equity rewrites, and role-based action planning aligned to The Journey to an Empowered Future. Attendees will leave with actionable tools to build racially literate systems where students become unstoppable advocates of their own success.

In this session, participants will discover how action research can transform music teaching practices and empower students to become self-navigating learners. Drawing from years of classroom-based research, this session explores how strategic inquiry can address real challenges. Focusing on a "wondering," action research is able to boost motivation and engagement, increase student agency, reduce challenging behaviors and classroom management issues, and deepen professional reflection. Participants will examine how action research improves teaching and learning, in addition to serving as a compelling tool for advocacy within schools and communities. Whether you're new to research or seeking to refine your practice, this session is designed to provide you with practical frameworks and strategies to conduct meaningful inquiries that amplify student voices, honor student choices, and result in continuous improvements. Action research is a powerful approach for reimagining the music classroom as a community in which curiosity, growth, and shared ownership thrives.

For climate justice storyteller and activist Wanjiku “Wawa” Gatheru, the journey to environmental leadership began with a simple realization: the environment has everything to do with us. In this engaging and empowering session, Gatheru helps students understand how climate change intersects with issues of race, equity, and community wellbeing—and why young people are essential voices in shaping solutions.

Drawing from her experience as a Rhodes Scholar, founder of Black Girl Environmentalist, and national youth climate leader, she shares how communities of color and women have historically been excluded from environmental conversations while also leading many of the most powerful movements for change. Through storytelling, real-world examples, and practical strategies, students will learn how they can become environmental advocates in their schools, neighborhoods, and online communities—proving that everyone has a role in building a more just climate future.