The CAS Summer Leadership Institute returns to The Heritage in Southbury on June 27 and 28. The theme of this year’s conference, “21st Century Vision: Leading the integration of social, emotional and academic learning,” will highlight the inter-connected aspects of social-emotional support and academic achievement. Keynote speaker Dr. Debbie Silver, well-known educator and author, will start the ball rolling with “Fall Down 7 Times, Get Up 8: Teaching Kids to Succeed.” Districts from around Connecticut will provide breakout sessions to highlight their work connecting social-emotional leadership and student achievement. Resource tables will provide attendees with the opportunity to connect with organizations that can help with the work once they return to their buildings or districts. Registration is now open!

CAS is again offering its well-received leadership academy, Leading for Change, beginning this fall. Designed to support teacher leaders, the five-session series builds skills and competencies needed by teacher leaders in today’s schools. The Academy has a limited number of cohort participants to ensure active engagement and personalized attention for each. In addition to attending the day-long sessions, participants are required to engage in a district-based leadership project which allows them to practice the concepts and skills learned in the Academy setting.  

The CAS-CIAC Endowment and Flanagan Grant Program, made possible by the generosity of sponsors whose dollars have helped us build a stable endowment fund, provides grant money to member schools to support new or existing initiatives that lead to enriched educational experiences and improved learning environments. Proposals are being accepted from member schools, individual students, or groups of students or schools (including academic/athletic leagues). The deadline for submissions is TOMORROW!

Registration for KiDSMARATHON 2019, an eight- to ten-week nutritional and fitness regimen for students ages 5-12 that can be easily implemented in any school setting, closes this Saturday, April 27th. Participants complete a full marathon by running incremental distances each week and finishing the last mile at a regional site along with hundreds of their peers. The training can take place before, during or after school. Using the mantra "winning is finishing and finishing is winning," KiDSMARATHON helps students develop life-long fitness skills, self-confidence and a sense of accomplishment.

Ten exceptional leaders from Connecticut's education and sports communities were inducted into the CAS-CIAC Hall of Honor on Thursday, April 11th. This year's inductees were Jerry Auclair, Bill Baron, Alan Bookman, John Daly (posthumously), Jean Kenney Daly, Bob Ford, George Ford (posthumously), Paul Hoey, Pat Llodra, and Barbara Startup. Watch the video clips depicting the influence and impact of each of these extraordinary individuals.

The Connecticut Alliance to End Sexual Violence and the Department of Public Health have teamed up to help support schools in the development and implementation of successful sexual violence awareness and prevention programs. As a first step, they are surveying the state’s administrators to assess the successes and challenges of policies and practices that are currently in place in the state’s K-12 schools. The results will help them develop a toolkit to best support school communities in implementing meaningful policies, practices, and educational activities geared toward creating safer schools. Please take 10 minutes of your time to complete the survey at: https://casci.ac/4551.

CT middle school debaters competed in their final event of the 2018-19 school year on Saturday, April 6th, at Eastern Middle School in Greenwich. A total of two hundred thirty-one students representing twenty-one schools competed. Eighty-four teams debated the motion: This House would prohibit the development and implementation of human gene editing.

ACES is accepting applications for the 2019-20 Alternate Route to Certification for Teachers of English Learners (ARCTEL). Earn a cross-endorsement TESOL and/or TESOL Teaching Certification while continuing to teach. Multiple cohort locations for teachers across CT! Go to www.aces.org/arctel for details & application or contact John Gustafson at 203.407.4451. Applications will be accepted through June 30th.

Preparing for and training faculty and staff to cope with campus violence is a critical piece of any administration’s incident response planning. On May 15th, the Leir Retreat Center in Ridgefield is hosting “School Campus Safety - A Workshop on Active Shooter Preparedness.” The workshop will cover the following areas:

• See Something, Say Something: How and Why it Works
• Active Shooter and Workplace Violence and Behavioral Indicators 
• Protocols/Preparedness for Emergency Response Teams, SWAT, Local and State Law Enforcement

All Connecticut administrators are invited to attend this no-cost event. Click here for details.