Thank you for learning with us at the 2023 SAIS Annual Conference. We hope the conference helped you expand your perspective, clarify goals and priorities, and sharpen your leadership skills.

Top Five Takeaways from our Keynote Speakers

Lee Rubin: Building Extraordinary Teams
What do extraordinary teams have in common?

  1. They have competitors. Every team needs people that are passionate and care about the success of the team.
  2. They have a common goal. Everyone on the team must be willing to sacrifice personal agendas to reach a common goal.
  3. They communicate, communicate, communicate. They also listen, listen, listen.
  4. They have chemistry. Heat and pressure build strong bonds within the team.
  5. They are consistent. Practice builds consistency.

Michael Horn: Recreating School for Every Child

  1. Innovation is any improvement that makes progress in the lives of students and families. Can we afford NOT to innovate?
  2. Focus on the why. What will success look like?
  3. What should schools be thinking about? Content knowledge, cognitive skills, habits of success, social-emotional wellbeing, real-world experience, and building social capital.
  4. Assessments need to be smaller in scope, more frequent, content aligned, both for and of learning, and not graded by the student’s teacher.
  5. Technology should save teachers time, extend their reach and understanding of their students, improve the feedback loop with students, and bring experiences to our physical environment we would not otherwise have the opportunity to encounter.

Jennifer Wallace: Mattering: The Key to Protecting Mental Health and Well-Being

  1. High achieving students in competitive schools are two to six times more likely to be diagnosed with clinical depression due to the excessive pressure to succeed.
  2. Mattering is when you feel valued for who you are away from achievement and success. The need to feel significant, seen, and understood.
  3. Do all students, staff, and parents in your school feel like they matter?
  4. Character strengths survey all schools can use. VIA Institute
  5. We all need to feel depended and relied upon. Do I feel like I matter to my teacher? Am I missed when I am not at school? Does my class depend on me?

Jessica Browning from The Winkler Group, one of this year’s conference exhibitors, also shares her takeaways on their blog.