The Empowered Superintendent: Leading Digital Transformation

Presented by Dr. David Schuler, Superintendent, Township High School District 214, IL, AASA 2018 Superintendent of the Year; and Dr. Chris Gaines, Superintendent, Mehlville School District, MO, 2018-2019 President of AASA. Both are members of CoSN’s Superintendents Advisory Panel.
Program Host and Moderator: Ann McMullan, Project Director, CoSN Empowered Superintendents Program
This edWebinar series is co-hosted by CoSN and edWeb.net

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The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) is pleased to join forces with edWeb.net in presenting a series of edWebinars featuring the CoSN Empowered Superintendent Program. The edWebinar series will focus on helping current and aspiring superintendents and district leadership teams build on their knowledge, skills, and confidence in leading digital transformations.

In this first edWebinar in the series, Dr. David Schuler and Dr. Chris Gaines, both active leaders in CoSN and AASA, share their best practices and recommended strategies for leading technology transformations within a school district setting. They focus on specific strategies outlined in The Empowered Superintendents Toolkit. Dr. Schuler and Dr. Gaines share examples from their own experiences in working with their boards, school leaders, and their communities in leading teaching and learning to meet the needs of today’s students.

The Empowered Superintendent is a CoSN initiative dedicated to helping superintendents, aspiring superintendents and district leadership teams build their knowledge, skills and confidence as technology leaders. The Empowered Superintendent Toolkit is a free resource developed by AASA and CoSN for school district leaders.

This recorded edWebinar will be of particular value to superintendents, assistant superintendents, district technology leaders, and those aspiring to those positions.

About the Presenters

Dr. David R. Schuler is the 2018 Illinois and National Superintendent of the Year. Known for his ability to inspire and build leaders, he spearheaded Redefining Ready!, the national movement to redefine what it means for students to be college, career and life ready while serving as the 2015-2016 President of AASA, The School Superintendents Association.

Dr. Schuler leads High School District 214, Illinois’ largest high school district, where he led the development of an innovative instructional philosophy around personalized learning experiences focused on career pathways, early college credit, and industry credentials that enables students to discover their futures while still in high school. The 44 pathways align with the 16 national career clusters and students gain real-world experience through youth apprenticeships and workplace learning experiences. Dr. Schuler earned his bachelor’s degree from Carroll University and his master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dr. Chris Gaines is in his fourth year as superintendent of the Mehlville School District in suburban St. Louis, MO. Under Dr. Gaines’ leadership Mehlville is expanding opportunities for students. They have widened the availability of virtual and blended learning options. Mehlville is currently 1:1 in grades 6-12 and will be 1:1 for K-12 later this school year.

In 2017 the district opened MOSAIC, a personalized learning elementary school, and created the MyPath program, which allows high school students to create their own class. The AASA Digital Consortium visited these programs in the spring of 2018 as part of their efforts to gain insight into emerging models of best practice using digital media to support engaging learning experiences. Dr. Gaines previously served as superintendent of the Crawford County R-I and Wright City R-II school districts. He is a member of the CoSN Superintendent Advisory Panel and is the 2018-2019 President of AASA.

About the Host

Ann McMullan is a 34-year veteran educator who served as the executive director for educational technology in the Klein Independent School District, located just outside Houston, Texas until September 2013, when she and her family moved to Los Angeles, California. For 16 years Ann led the team in Klein ISD that provided professional development on technology and 21st century instructional strategies to over 4,000 professional educators serving over 50,000 students. During that time Ann also co-chaired the Texas Education Technology Advisory Committee which developed the Texas Education Agency’s Long Range Plan for Technology, 2006-2020.

Today, she is based in Los Angeles, California working as a public speaker, writer, and independent education consultant focused on supporting leadership, visioning and planning to meet the needs of today’s students. She is a frequent presenter at state, national and international education conferences. Ann serves as project director for CoSN’s Empowered Superintendents Program. She serves on the board of PowerMyLearning Los Angeles and on the advisory board of Project Tomorrow. In the fall of 2016 Ann co-authored and published Life Lessons in Leadership: The Way of the Wallaby.

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CoSN (the Consortium for School Networking) is the premier professional association for school system technology leaders. CoSN provides thought leadership resources, community, best practices and advocacy tools to help leaders succeed in the digital transformation. CoSN represents over 13 million students in school districts nationwide and continues to grow as a powerful and influential voice in K-12 education.

Listen to the Podcast

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If you would like a CE certificate for this presentation, watch the edWebinar recording and take the CE quiz.

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