'25 MSAA Summer Institute

In an unpredictable time, joy is a necessity. When we tap into the genius of students and staff, we create schools where joy is unleashed and positive change extends beyond our walls into the communities we serve. This session will explore embracing a culture where students and educators lead together. Whether it's through student entrepreneurship, staff-led professional learning, advisory, whole school events that staff and students co-lead (and more!), we will demonstrate that when people dive into work with passion and purpose, schools thrive. We are thrilled to be joined by our keynote Beth Houf who will share insights on leading with joy, resilience, and authenticity. Walk away with actionable strategies and a vision for making joyful, genius-driven learning the heartbeat of your school. If you were here seven years ago, you may remember our first Unleashing Genius session. Come join us and help us take it to the next level!

The Tenacity Challenge is an academic competition for teams of African American and Latina/o high school students, and on a separate date, middle school students. Students prepare for several months to compete in four events on the culminating day: the history argument before a panel of judges, the literature analysis (with with written rationale and videotaped performance), the math quiz bowl and the art installation.  On another date, the middle school challenge includes a leadership competition, the literature analysis, a STEM challenge and the math quiz bowl.   With over 2000 students impacted to date, the preparation and the competition build academic risk taking, collaboration, deep learning and leadership skills, all of which contribute to a sense of belonging and the closing of achievement gaps at their home schools.

Systematic discrimination and oppression impacts our interactions and decisions. We acknowledge that due to inequality, we all have not lived the same experience or have access to the same opportunities such as education and employment, which influences our daily lives. As we are working towards being anti racist institutions, it is important to be cognizant of our identity and how it impacts our daily interactions. This session will allow participants to consider strategies for how they might address authentic school-based equity scenarios using the "Reflection Tool for Equity in Education."

As school leaders, we have all had experiences that lead us to say, "well, that's one for the book!" In this session, we will have an opportunity to reflect on situations and case studies that test our responsiveness, resilience, and patience - while also giving some time to laugh at the things that we all deal with but maybe don't get a chance to talk about. Using a framework of "the genius is the room," participants will analyze some real-life experiences of school leaders and come up with some different ideas to put in the toolbox, even if they are never or infrequently used.

New administrators must be given a mentor within two weeks of hire. DESE recommends that this mentor has completed a DESE endorsed training, however, no such program exists in Massachusetts. Additionally, mentoring, in general, is often left to local control. Administrators mentoring experience differs from one school to the next and often from one mentor to the next. While this allows for professional decision making, it leaves room for much error, and often leaves proteges without an equitable onboarding experience.