FETC - District 91心頭istration /category/technology-and-cybersecurity/fetc/ District 91心頭istration Media Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:13:23 +0000 en-US hourly 1 Road to FETC | How to Apply to Present at FETC /webinar/road-to-fetc-how-to-apply-to-present-at-fetc/ Wed, 22 Apr 2026 14:41:49 +0000 /?post_type=webinar&p=183587 Date & Time: Wednesday, May 13, 2026油at 4 p.m. ET

Are you wondering what to consider when creating your proposal to speak at FETC? Learn how to take your concept from idea to execution in this webinar hosted by Jennifer Womble, FETC Conference Chair and several featured speakers.

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Date & Time: Wednesday, May 13, 2026油at 4 p.m. ET

FETC content presentations provide a springboard to the nations education technology community to drive transformation, exchange techniques, redesign education and share thought to empower participants with strategies for teaching, leading and learning success.

Are you wondering what to consider when creating your proposal to speak at FETC? Learn how to take your concept from idea to execution in this webinar hosted by Jennifer Womble, FETC Conference Chair and several featured speakers.

This webinar is for beginners as well as returning speakers who want to better understand the application process to submit their very best proposal for all session types and tracks. 油FETC速 invites education technology professionals representing all levels, content areas and specialties, as well as industry and technology experts, to submit a proposal to present.

Join this webinar to learn the best practices for submitting #edtech proposals to present!

Speaker

Jennifer Womble, Conference Chair, Future of Education Technology Conference (FETC)

Sponsored by

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How to gain a competitive advantage in tech grants /article/how-to-gain-a-competitive-advantage-in-tech-grants/ Thu, 16 Apr 2026 12:41:37 +0000 /?post_type=article&p=183353 New funding rule aims to prepare students and teachers for an AI-driven workforce.

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Districts that embed AI literacy, educator training and age-appropriate computer science into federal grant proposals will gain a direct competitive advantage for Education Department discretionary funding starting next month.

The Department of Education’s for K12 and higher ed grants aim to prepare students and teachers for an AI-driven workforce by building their skills in the appropriate artificial intelligence use.

The agency intends to support AI literacy through expanded computer science courses and professional development. The new guidelines should encourage educators to use AI to personalize instruction, use AI to serve students with disabilities and streamline administrative tasks.

Dual-enrollment AI coursework and high-impact AI tutoring are examples of programs that could rate highly in grant proposals.油The rule also requires all funded AI projects to incorporate universal design for learning and to accommodate students with disabilities and multilingual learners. Federal funds will also support the use of AI to improve academic initiatives.

Feedback from educators, parents and industry leaders inspired the provisions requiring age-appropriate AI use. Several commenters expressed concerns about student privacy and increased screen time.

“Children already spend an average of 7.5 hours a day on screens for non-school activities,” according to one commenter. “Increased AI use will only deepen this crisis and exacerbate the physical and mental health harms of screen time.

The department emphasized that state and local agencies remain responsible for safety policies.

Public hesitancy persists

Many comments mirror those made by leading advocates in recent weeks following an AI summit held at the White House last month. Education experts believe the government’s vision for AI in education is out of touch.

During the “Fostering the Future Together Global Summit,” first lady Melania Trump introduced the idea of personalized AI tutoring with a humanoid robot.

Imagine a humanoid educator named Plato,’ she said. Access to the classical studies is now instantaneousliterature, science, art, philosophy, mathematics, and historyhumanitys entire corpus of information is available in the comfort of your home.

This idea drew pushback from teachers’ unions. The president of the American Federation of Teachers described the first lady’s scenario as “every parent’s worst nightmare.”

“The tech billionaires tried to get technology 20 years ago to replace teachers, now they’re trying to get AI to replace teachers,” RandiWeingarten told .

Meanwhile, optimistic leaders油want to merge the human element of instruction with tailored AI support. One expert described AI as a co-worker or a team member designed to collaborate back and forth with the user to achieve a particular goal.

This banter, said Pitsco Education CEO Matt Frankenbery, plays out as prompt engineering, i.e., asking questions, refining inputs and iterating through conversations with AI. These interactions require intentional thinking, adjustment and other key cognitive skills.

Because of this, Frankenbery challenges the narrative that AI clouds students critical thinking skills.

If you dont have the critical thinking skills of how to write that prompt and how to refine it, then youre going to struggle to use AI effectively, he explains.

District 91心頭istration uses artificial intelligence to support research and drafting, with all content reviewed and verified by the author.


91心頭+: Superintendents and cabinet-level leaders can sign up for a to 91心頭+ to livestream “Leading Through the Noise: Staying Grounded in a Politicized Environment” with Dr. Quintin Shepherd on April 28.


 

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Why AI education debates focus on a false choice /article/why-ai-education-debates-focus-on-a-false-choice/ Mon, 30 Mar 2026 11:49:02 +0000 /?post_type=article&p=182642 For many schools and the educators leading them, the framing of AI adoption as primarily a tool usage issue has already been left behind.

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We recently read an article in The Washington Post titled Schools are teaching AIand making a massive mistake. As educators who lead in this space of artificial intelligence and education, we feel that the piece raises questions that genuinely matter, but we are concerned that it reads as though it were written 18 months ago.

For many schools and the educators leading them, the framing of AI adoption as primarily a tool usage issue has already been left behind. The conversation has moved on, and that’s really worth acknowledging.

On critical thinking, we’re completely with the authors. We would argue that the most effective schools we’ve observed embed problem or project-based learning approaches, where AI is one tool among many that students learn to interrogate rather than simply operate.

The distinction between skills acquisition and genuine agency matters enormously, and fluency with AI tools is only the starting point. Combining that fluency with the judgment to apply it wisely is where the real work isand plenty of schools are either developing or doing it already, just perhaps not consistently across a cohort.

We work with schools across the US and UK, and internationally, and have never encountered schools that are overwhelmingly focused on prompting mechanics at the expense of genuine understanding. This is a false dichotomy.

Teaching tools and developing understanding are not opposing approaches. Virtually no serious educator advocates for tools in isolation.

The best AI education programs worldwidefrom Singapores AI for Students framework to Finland’s Elements of AIall integrate conceptual understanding with hands-on tool use from the start. The either/or framing doesn’t reflect how learning actually works.

Prompting is a higher-order literacy skill

I’m afraid the authors own analogy that teaching AI tools is like undermines their argument. In science classes around the world, students are taught how to use microscopes in a hands-on way, rather than studying the theory of optics.

The constructivist tradition from Piaget through Dewey to Papert is clear, in that understanding develops through purposeful use, not before it in some abstract vacuum. Agency isn’t just knowledge. It’s the capacity to act effectively, and capacity comes from doing.

The idea that the skill of prompting is narrow and disposable, made by the authors, is an out-of-date argument made by people who thought AI chatbots in 2026 would instinctively know the intricacies of your request.

What the authors of the article fail to understand is that good prompting is really structured communication. It is articulating what you want, providing context, setting constraints, and iterating on feedback.

These are higher-order literacy skills. Research from Stanford’s HAI group and others consistently shows that the ability to communicate effectively with AI systems is becoming a foundational competence. The specific tools will change; the ability to clearly specify a task and critically evaluate output won’t. That’s transferable, not trivial.

The article claims that the less you know about AI, the more likely you are to use it. But this finding actually supports integrated tool use with critical reflection, not delayed tool use.

If people who lack understanding over-rely on AI, the fastest way to build calibrated judgment is structured practice where students see AI fail, hallucinate and produce biased outputs firsthand. You can’t develop calibrated judgment about a system you’ve never interacted with.

Abstract knowledge about how neural networks function doesn’t tell you when a chatbot is confidently wrong about your history essay. Experience does.

How to spread confidence

The article cites Seckinger High School as evidence that the “holistic approach” produces better outcomes. But this is a classic correlation-causation error.

Seckinger opened as a brand-new, purpose-built school with a specific STEM/AI focus. It will attract more motivated students and families and receive additional funding than many other schools. Attributing its results to pedagogical philosophy alone and ignoring the structural advantages is a significant evidential leap.

The article continues on shaky ground in its inference that students are poorly taught about AI’s limitations. This may have been broadly accurate in 2023.

In our extensive work, we are seeing schools develop AI literacy pathways, leaders at all levels asking more nuanced and strategic questions, and senior teams refining governance policies that treat healthy skepticism as a feature rather than a gap to fill.

The implied “prescription” shared in the piecebetter frameworks, teacher training and curriculum redesignisn’t wrong. We champion these measures.

But it risks inadvertently suggesting that schools already navigating AI thoughtfully, building strong AI committees, engaging their communities meaningfully, and measuring impact rigorously are somehow part of the same undifferentiated problem being described. They’re not, and they deserve better than that.

The real challenge for commentators and policymakers isn’t to describe a sector in need of rescue. Instead, we must identify what’s already working and help share that across the system, resisting the urge to create polarising dichotomies that only serve to remove the nuance from this extremely complex situation education finds itself in.

There are some schools already doing this with confidence and, we would argue, impact. The question is how we scale that confidence, not how we sustain a narrative that the whole system is falling behind.

7 small but powerful actions

Lastly, we want to share an analogy of our own. The idea of deeply understanding AI before practicing with it is like saying students should study music theory for a year before touching an instrument. It sounds rigorous, but as educators, we know this is actually a recipe for disengagement

Here are some small but powerful actions we see school leaders implementing:

  1. A tool + interrogation lesson. Put AI in front of students and ask them to challenge its output. Teaching tools and critical thinking are not mutually exclusive.
  2. Audit one unit for AI integration. Find where AI could fit in a project-based learning class, as one resource among many. This brings to life the constructivist principle that understanding is born by purposeful doing, not before it.
  3. Create a session where AI does things wrong. Have students or staff test AI on subject-specific content and record issues, including failures, hallucinations, bias and what AI does badly. Student judgment comes as they use and assess the AI system.
  4. Reframe prompting as a literacy lesson, not a tech lesson. Articulating a clear request, providing context, setting constraints and iterating on feedback are the higher-order communication skills.
  5. Apply the cognitive stretch test to one assessment. Ask if AI do it without the students unique perspective or judgment? If so, modify and redesign. This dismantles the false choice between AI fluency and deep understanding.
  6. Have your AI committee set up before your next policy revision. Schools doing well are proactively governing by creating a strategy, a direction forward. Everything else supports that journey.
  7. Map a multi-stage AI literacy pathway. Progression, rather than a one-off training, signals that your school treats AI skepticism as a feature of the curriculum.
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Why the key to innovation isnt technology. Its trust /article/why-the-key-to-district-innovation-isnt-technology-its-trust/ Mon, 16 Mar 2026 08:10:52 +0000 /?post_type=article&p=182207 Innovation scales when communities help design itnot when districts simply announce it.

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District leaders across the country are under pressure to move quickly, introducing artificial intelligence, redesigning learning pathways and preparing students for an uncertain future.
But the districts making the most progress on innovation are discovering something surprising.

The key to innovation isnt technology. Its trust. Innovation is a relationship strategy before it is a technology strategy.

At a recent discussion with superintendents at the AASA National Conference on Education 2026, district leaders shared how community partnerships are becoming the real driver of innovation. Their experiences point to a simple yet powerful shift in leadership: moving from district-driven initiatives to community-co-created ecosystems.

Innovative districts arent built on devices or dashboardstheyre built on trust, I shared data from our national survey from superintendents during the session. When communities help shape the vision, partnerships form and transformation becomes possible at scale.

Why district innovation fails without trust

Many districts have experienced a familiar pattern. A promising initiative launchesAI tools, a one-to-one device program, or an innovation centerbut community support never fully materializes.

Teachers question the purpose, parents worry about the impact, and adoption stalls. The issue is rarely the technology itself. More often, the missing ingredient is shared ownership.

Superintendents from the session illustrated how initiatives struggle when families and teachers are not included in early conversations about purpose, guardrails and expectations.

Without that engagement, even well-funded initiatives risk becoming another program rather than a transformational shift. District leaders who start with trust are seeing very different outcomes.

Scaling innovation through shared vision

For Kelly May-Vollmar, superintendent of California’s Desert Sands Unified School District, innovation begins by aligning community values with district goals.

Technology initiatives gain momentum when they reflect what the community cares about, May-Vollmar explained. When families understand the purpose and see the connection to student opportunity, they become champions for the work.

In large districts, that means intentionally building confidence around future-ready initiatives. Community conversations about artificial intelligence, design thinking and workforce readiness are helping families understand not only what is changing in schools, but why it matters.

Turning schools into community learning ecosystems

For smaller districts, partnerships can dramatically expand what learning looks like. Alana Winnick, chief technology officer of New York’s Pocantico Hills CSD, described how collaboration with cultural organizations, museums and local partners creates experiences that connect students to their community.

Our most powerful learning experiences happen when students engage with the world beyond the classroom, Winnick said. Partnerships with community organizations help students see how what they learn in school connects to real life.

These collaborationsfrom community adult learning programs to student-led technology eventsalso help families feel more comfortable participating in conversations about emerging technologies.

Co-creating a shared vision for student success

One of the strongest examples of community engagement came from Illinois. At Community High School District 117, Superintendent Jeff Feucht helped lead a process that brought more than 80 students, parents, educators and community members together to design the districts Portrait of a Graduate.

When our community helped define the skills and qualities we want for our graduates, something powerful happened, Feucht said. It stopped being the districts vision and became the communitys vision for students.

The result is a framework that emphasizes communication, collaboration, critical thinking and emotional intelligenceskills that community members agreed were essential for students futures. Perhaps more importantly, the process created widespread alignment across the district.

Designing innovation with the community

As districts explore artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies, leaders are increasingly recognizing that technical decisions are also community decisions.

Superintendents in the session discussed how families can help shape technology roadmaps, participate in AI literacy initiatives and contribute to conversations about ethics, workforce preparation and lifelong learning.

For district leaders looking to build similar momentum, several practical strategies emerged from the discussion:

  1. Invite the community early: Before launching major initiatives, host listening sessions with families, teachers and local partners.
  2. Co-design the vision: Engage community members in defining graduate outcomes, mission statements or strategic priorities.
  3. Connect innovation to real life and relevant experiences: Partnerships with community organizations, businesses and nonprofits make learning more meaningful for students.
  4. Focus on shared purpose: Technology initiatives succeed when stakeholders understand the why behind them.

The team around every student

One of the most powerful reminders from the discussion came at the end of the session.
Families are not stakeholdersthey are partners, Alana Winnick told district leaders in closing.
When schools, families and communities work together, innovation becomes less about implementing new tools and more about creating opportunities for students.

And in a time when education is navigating rapid changefrom artificial intelligence to workforce transformationthat partnership may be the most valuable infrastructure any district can build.

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How tech’s impact is spreading beyond the classroom /article/how-techs-impact-is-spreading-beyond-the-classroom/ Mon, 02 Mar 2026 13:53:40 +0000 /?post_type=article&p=181827 District leaders acknowledge some issues, like financial constraints and staff vacancies, can't be fixed by technology alone,

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Technology has油expanded from the classroom to drive many critical district operations.油Here’s how油new tools are improving schools beyond instruction.

Absenteeism is one of the biggest problems administrators are using technology to solve, according to a from PowerSchool, a student information systems provider. This includes油generating alerts on chronically absent students so educators can take more immediate actions to bring kids back to school.

Technology is also improving districts’ ability to:

  • Analyze district-wide data to reveal trends and potential flaws in operations.
  • Engage with parents and families in academics and attendance.
  • Connect data across traditionally siloed sources.
  • Provide educators with high-quality instructional materials.
  • Support staff in using data to make better-informed decisions.

Meanwhile, districts are facing油problems that technology alone can’t resolve, the researchers acknowledge. In 2026, the top five challenges油impacting school districts are managing teacher workloads, recruitment and retention, financial constraints, enrollment and student engagement, according to the research.

“Ultimately, the increased workload can compromise both teacher well-being and student learning outcomes,” said Nicole Bond, director of attendance and enrollment at Tennessee’s Haywood County Schools.

However, priorities shift depending on the role. For school administrators, their top three challenges this year are district finances, followed by staff vacancies and enrollment.

Political uncertainty is having the biggest impact on budgets, according to two-thirds of district leaders surveyed in the report. Nearly 50% of administrators may delay油infrastructure projects because of decreased funding.

Leaders can make better-informed decisions with tools that generate real-time financial and enrollment data, the research suggests. For more ideas, read the full report .


More from 91心頭: Whats just as important as AI literacy? Ethics training


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Road to FETC | Navigating the Unknown: District Leaders Turning Challenges into Opportunities /webinar/road-to-fetc-navigating-the-unknown-district-leaders-turning-challenges-into-opportunities/ Wed, 11 Feb 2026 18:46:31 +0000 /?post_type=webinar&p=181591 Date & Time: Thursday, March 12油at 4 p.m. ET

In partnership with the Center for Digital Education and FETC, this panel unveils results from a national survey of district leaders, highlighting the issues that keep them up at nightstaff turnover, student test scores, funding uncertainty, teacher shortages, AI governance, cybersecurity attacks, policy changes, and cultural stressors impacting school communities.

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Date & Time: Thursday, March 12油at 4 p.m. ET

Superintendents today face an unprecedented landscape of shifting policies, political pressures, and rising community expectations. In partnership with the Center for Digital Education and FETC, this panel unveils results from a national survey of district leaders, highlighting the issues that keep them up at nightstaff turnover, student test scores, funding uncertainty, teacher shortages, AI governance, cybersecurity attacks, policy changes, and cultural stressors impacting school communities. Join visionary superintendents and IT leaders as they share candid perspectives on navigating these challenges with resilience and innovation to discover opportunities for partnership and growth. Discover strategies for sustaining leadership, securing resources, and leveraging technology to stabilize schools while keeping student learning and well-being at the center.

Speakers

Glenn Robbins, Superintendent, Brigantine Public Schools (NJ)

Dr. Nneka McGee, Former CAO; Founder, Muon Global

Dr. Patrick Gittisriboongul, Superintendent, Lynwood Unified School District (CA)

Jennifer Womble, Chair, Future of Education Technology Conference

Brian Cohen, Vice President, Center for Digital Education

Sponsored by

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One superintendent shares ideas for how to talk to kids /article/why-conversation-is-so-important-for-k12-connections-erika-bare-south-umpqua/ Thu, 05 Feb 2026 17:56:21 +0000 /?post_type=article&p=180914 Superintendent Erika Bare believes educators can improve achievement, behavior and other components of student success through conversation.

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Superintendent Erika Bare believes educators can improve achievement, behavior and other components of student success if they learn to communicate with students more honestly and authentically.

Bare and co-author Tiffany Burns released in 2023, and educators have been galvanized by the duo’s guidance on building connections with kids, says Bare, who leads Oregon’s South Umpqua School District.

“You have to know who [students] are individually,” Bare explains. “You have to do everything you can to build a relationship with them that is based on how much you care about them. If kids know how much you care about them, then they’re willing to do almost anything for you.”

Educators and parents must avoid the easy trap of getting into power struggles with students and focus on conversational moves that help young people make better choices about their behavior when they’re struggling, she notes.

“Our educators are so busy, and they’re asked to do so much, and burnout is a real thing that we see everywhere across education,” Bare continues. “The solution to that isn’t an extra massage or a personal day, it’s about having collective efficacy around how to respond in a way that feels like I know what I’m doing.”

Bringing the world to the classroom

Bare and her educators’ top priority is to broaden the world for the 1,400 students in the rural, high-poverty district. Teachers use virtual field trips and other platforms to connect students to professionals, museums, higher education and other experiences.

“We’re really focused on raising achievement, raising what our students see as possible for themselves, and then hoping that they will reinvest and stay in our beautiful community in southern Oregon,” Bare points out.

Bare has also examined how AI and other technologies reduce the administrative load on educators and help teachers differentiate instruction to support all students.

“We have 25 students in a classroom, each one of them with a really unique set of needs,” she says. We’re not outsourcing teaching at all, but we can outsource some tasks to technology so teachers can focus on what mattersbuilding those connections and focusing on the individual needs of the students.”

Bare has led South Umpqua for a year and a half and has set the district “on a very specific path” to staff classrooms with high-quality educators, building strong community connections and maintaining modern, safe facilities. Third-grade reading achievement has increased by 12% and 23% over the last two years. Attendance and math scores are also improving.

How to be caring油and油brave

Bare and Burns have a new book coming out in April that covers how administrators can have challenging conversations with other adults at schools. It focuses on grounding those discussions in the care leaders must have for their communities, in and outside schools.

“We have to be brave enough to step into some of these conversations that might feel really uncomfortable,” she notes. “And then have the tools to do it in a way that can strengthen relationships instead of break them.”

Like their first book, she describes the new publication as a “playbook” that includes scripts and scenarios that administrators can use to guide these conversations. The new book also aims to help administrators make teacher observations more productive and informative.

“It’s something that administrators have to spend a lot of time on,” she observes. “And yet, I would say 90% of folks, if you ask them how meaningful that work is, they’ll say it isn’t. It’s like a checkbox. It’s a thing they have to get done.”


On the move: These superintendents find new homes in early 2026


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‘If you’re not growing, your district isn’t either’ /article/if-youre-not-growing-your-district-isnt-either/ Mon, 26 Jan 2026 08:22:43 +0000 /?post_type=article&p=180863 Community engagement skyrocketed in this district while administrative workloads plummeted. Here's some advice from its award-winning superintendent.

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A district’s success relies on its leader’s ability to embrace self-growthbecause there is always room for growth, argues District 91心頭istration’s油2026 Superintendent of the Year.

That includes attending conferences like The Future of Education Technology Conference, says Dr. Jeff Horton, superintendent of Minnesota’s Southwest Metro Intermediate School District 288. The self-described “10-point extrovert” sees conferences like these as essential hubs for professional growth.

“It’s so easy to meet and find people here,” he says. “It’s really exciting. You sit down at a table, and people start talking to you. They want to hear your story and the things that you’re working on.”

These collaborative spaces are where the “dreaming” phase of education begins, as leaders and edtech vendors nationwide come together to imagine what the future of learning looks like.

“If you’re not growing as a leader, your organization’s not growing,” he explains, urging leaders seek research and peer networking opportunities.

A time of reflection

Being named 91心頭’s 2026 Superintendent of the Year reflects his community, Horton insists.油He expressed a desire to slice his award into a thousand pieces to share with the staff, families and external partners who contribute to the district’s ongoing success.

For instance, in just eight months, Horton’s district increased community engagement by 3,700% and reduced administrative work by nearly 500% through an AI-powered survey and engagement platform, he said, speaking to attendees at FETC 2026.

“I’m lucky that I’m able to be the superintendent and serve,” he says. Horton describes his leadership philosophy as a community-first model, where he creates opportunities for his diverse district to help stakeholders recognize their “best self.”

“We have urban, we have suburban, we have rural,” he says. “Each of those elements in education offers great things. How can we tie them all together and focus on innovation and challenge the status quo?”

Innovation in K12 schools is a slow and steady process, he says, adding that leaders must be comfortable with discomfort to achieve their bold goals.

Looking ahead to the rest of the year, Horton is shifting from intense community listening to rigorous implementationsimilar to a football team taking skills developed in strength training and conditioning to compete in the playoffs.

“You have to do the work right and practice. You have to condition and strength train. You have to do all those things to put yourself in a position for success, and I think that’s a lot of what we’re doing right now.”

Advice for new leaders

The superintendency is getting younger, the suggests. Horton’s challenging advice is for new leaders to seek jobs in vulnerable districts, because that’s where they will grow the most.

“It’s not for everybody, but my dream district is one that needs the most amount of help,” he says. “Find me the district that needs the most support. Put me in, and give me a chance to give it everything I’ve got.”


More from 91心頭: Why you’d want to replicate this district’s approach to CTE


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Why these superintendentsand many othersattend FETC /article/why-these-superintendents-and-many-others-attend-fetc/ Tue, 13 Jan 2026 17:33:07 +0000 /?post_type=article&p=180745 Inspiring students to think big about their future is a key use of technology in the small, rural South Umpqua School District, Superintendent Erika Bare says.

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Inspiring students to think big about their future is a key use of technology in the small, rural South Umpqua School District in southern Oregon, Superintendent Erika Bare says.

We have to broaden the world for them, and we have to bring experiences to them or show them experiences that they might not see otherwise, Bare said during an interview at the on Tuesday.

FETC has guided Bare in using virtual field trips to help her students connect with experts, explore higher education and potential career paths, visit museums and engage with the world outside their tight-knit community. Bare was particularly inspired by FETC’s drone show, which was performed Monday night by CTE students from Colorado’s St. Vrain Valley Schools.

“It was incredible in terms of opening up what is possible when we put tools in the hands of our kids and really support them with learning the technology,” she said.

Bare also examined ways schools are using AI and other technology to reduce the administrative load on educators and make it easier for teachers to differentiate instruction to support all students’ needs.

“We can outsource some tasks to technology so teachers can focus on what matters in the classroomon building those connections, on focusing on the individual needs of the students,” she said. “Using all of these tools, suddenly it’s possible.”

AI spreads good news

Superintendent Erick Alfonso presented on how his district, New Jersey’s Belleville Public Schools, is using AI to improve school climate. He and his team use AI to drive its Belleville Brilliance initiative to spread good news about the district.

Alfonso, who became superintendent in July, has formed an AI task force to manage the integration of the technology across the district to connect its various platforms. With New Jersey developing a statewide AI policy for K12, he and his team are also working to build teachers’ expertise in AI so they can show students how to use the technology responsibly.

Like many other K12 leaders, Alfonso is excited for his teachers to use AI to break down data so instruction can be individualized to each student. Creating more time for teachers to connect with students is key in a district with higher poverty and higher needs.

His administrators use AI to process student data more quickly for state reports.油“AI has been a real game changer, and it’s evident everywhere,” Alfonso said.

Finding like-minded leaders

For nearly a decade, attending FETC has been an annual tradition for Superintendent Chuck Lane to find innovative solutions and technologies that can’t be found locally.

“It’s [FETC] just one of the best things of the year for me as a superintendent,” said the Centralia High School District leader. He explains that the “sheer volume” of the opportunities showcased at the event and the lack of “high-pressure” sales tactics found at other conventions make FETC a valuable experience.

Lane also finds networking a crucial component of FETC. The Illinois leader, who oversees a district with a roughly 65% low-income rate, looks for opportunities to connect with leaders facing similar challenges.

“I try to find like-minded superintendents leading districts with similar demographics and find what’s working for them,” he explained. These connections often last years after meeting, he adds.

Like most leaders attending FETC, integrating artificial intelligence is a top priority for Lane. Rather than tunnel visioning on student use, he is looking for ways to enhance staff productivity and instruction.

“We’re worried less about using AI for students but more for our staff to make them better teachers,” he noted.

His special education teachers, specifically, can benefit tremendously from the technology. Writing individualized education programs is a “painstaking process” that eats up most of his teachers’ time. He recognizes that AI can help assist with creating goals and objectives, giving teachers more time to spend with students.

Lane said it’s important for superintendents to stay “tech-savvy.” National summits are critical for exploring emerging technologies that leaders can utilize to bridge the gap between small districts and major urban centers.

“I want our kids to have the same advantages as kids in Chicago or St. Louis or wherever around us,” he said. “You never stop learning. And coming to stuff like this makes me a better leader, which makes our principals better, our teachers better and our students better.”

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AI and VR: How this leader is navigating both /article/ai-and-vr-how-this-leader-is-navigating-both/ Tue, 13 Jan 2026 15:52:24 +0000 /?post_type=article&p=180729 Communicating a well-thought-out plan is more valuable than restricting AI altogether, says Desert Sands Unified School District Superintendent Kelly May-Vollmar.

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As district leaders continue grappling with AI policy and enforcement, one superintendent argues that restricting the technology is no longer an option.

“We had a really great session this morning talking about the threats of AI and how to prepare students beyond the idea of banning it,” Kelly May-Vollmar, superintendent at California’s Desert Sands Unified School District, told油District 91心頭istration油at the 2026 .

Instead, she and her team have shifted toward developing implementation plans that address the ethical and social-emotional risks associated with AI. Those risks include the ability for students to manipulate photographs without understanding the consequences and an increasing “inability to distinguish what’s real,” she says.

She also notes a growing trend of young people depending on AI for social-emotional needs, explaining that “kids are going more to AI than they are human beings.”

May-Vollmar’s background as a former chief technology officer helps her position her district as edtech evolves. When it comes to assessing new technologies for district use, she uses a “three-bucket” evaluation system: assess capacity (time and talent), create a well-written implementation plan and measure hoped outcomes.

“If you’ve got a well-thought-out plan, you can move the needle quite a bit,” she says.

Meanwhile, May-Vollmar’s core mission at FETC is to secure a virtual reality partner. Many of her students come from families with varying socioeconomic backgrounds. VR offers experiences students might otherwise not have.

“It ignites their interest,” she says, noting that there’s value in immersive tech that is far more engaging than “looking at pictures in a book.”

Looking ahead to the rest of 2026, her priorities include academic proficiency, future-focused initiatives like CTE, and a major shift in how the district tackles parent engagement. Lately, she’s found success through her “Coffee with Kelly” events, which she invites student leaders and PTO presidents as co-hosts to increase traction and interaction with families.

“I’m interacting with so many more people because these leaders are my liaisons,” she says. “Families want to see them. It’s not about me.”


More from FETC: These leaders are discovering big ideas at FETC


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