Professional Learning Series
Join the OLAC team for a series of free professional learning sessions designed to provide educators with the structures and resources necessary to develop and support effective leadership at every level. Explore OLAC’s latest online learning tools, including modules, webinars, videos, podcast episodes, and more to support educators as they work to embed essential leadership practices at every level of a school system. Remember, all resources are free and you can earn credit.
2023-2024 Dates
Three-Part Series: You Have Your Staff, Now What?
June 28, August 7 & August 29, 9-10:30 a.m. (all sessions)
Presenter: Carrie Sanchez, Director of Leadership & Learning, North Point Educational Service Center
This three-part series is designed to help organize and inspire your thinking as you begin to plan the upcoming school year. Solid, intentional planning will give you peace and freedom to enjoy your summer and look forward to the upcoming year.
June 28, 2023: Strategies for Strengthening Building Leadership
You have built your team and hopefully you have filled all of your vacancies. There may be shifts in assignments or there may be new members to your team—how do you ensure that you start the upcoming year on the right track? Learn strategies that will strengthen your building leadership.
August 7, 2023: Making OTES Meaningful
How do you as the building leader make OTES meaningful, stress free, and growth focused for everyone? It IS possible and a positive OTES plan makes everything more pleasant for everyone. This success begins with the school leader’s mindset and structured plan. Explore a variety of ways to plan, schedule, and implement all of the elements of OTES.
August 29, 2023: Understanding and Using Your school Data
Designing a plan to positively infuse data into your school culture is the superpower of school leaders. This session will provide building leaders with tools, strategies, and understanding on how to effectively teach your teachers WHY this data is important and how to genuinely USE it without it feeling like a confrontational conversation.
Become an OLAC Facilitator
September 15, 2023, 9 a.m.–12 p.m.
Presenters: OLAC Team
From the beginning, the Ohio Leadership Advisory Council’s goal has been to provide educators – no matter their role – with the structures and resources they need to develop shared and effective leadership at every level.
OLAC is proud to offer free resources to support your personal or team’s professional learning—in a safe online environment and at your convenience. By becoming a certified OLAC facilitator, you will be able to share these resources with others and demonstrate how to integrate them into their leadership and instructional practices. Become familiar with and gain working knowledge of:
- The OLAC web platform, including new features and enhanced functionality
- How to use module, webinar, podcast, and video content to enhance the effectiveness of district and building leadership teams and teacher-based teams (DLTs, BLTs, TBTs)
- Ohio Principal Evaluation System (OPES) Crosswalk—Lead superintendents/principals through the Principal Crosswalk, which aligns relevant OLAC modules, webinars, podcasts, and videos to the Ohio Principal Standards
- Ohio Teacher Evaluation System (OTES) 2.0 Crosswalk—Lead principals/teachers through the Teacher Crosswalk, which aligns relevant OLAC modules, webinars, podcasts, and videos to the Ohio Standards for the Teaching Profession
- How to support superintendents, principals, and teachers in developing a professional growth plan
- Team Assessment—Become familiar with the new Systemic Improvement Practices Review (SIPR), an online team assessment designed for DLTs
- New modules, webinars, and videos on demand
- Credit options—Become familiar with templates for workshop offerings using OLAC modules that can be presented to colleges and universities for consideration for college credit. Facilitators will also become familiar for LPDC credit options available through the OLAC website.
Understanding Your School Report Card
September 19, 9-10:30 a.m.
Presenter: Carrie Sanchez, Director of Leadership & Learning, North Point Educational Service Center
Designed for building and district leaders, explore critical areas of building and state report cards. Learn about how calculations are formulated, what each area represents, and how educational leaders can use this information to drive meaningful conversations with teachers, parents, community members, and boards of education. Leave this session with a deeper understanding of how building and district report cards can be meaningful tools for enhanced student learning and achievement. This session will also connect to the Ohio Improvement Process (OIP) framework to help leaders identify critical areas of need, plan for implementation by understanding how to use the tools available, and learn more how to examine, reflect, and adjust based upon a deeper understanding of student outcomes.
Leader Credibility: The Essential Traits of Effective School Leaders
September 29, 9:30-11:30 a.m.
Presenter: Cathy Lassiter, Author, Former 35-year public school teacher, principal, and central office administrator
Now more than ever, schools need to be places where openness and can-do are baked into every hallway hello and every meeting. This vision-setting starts at the top, and with a combination of strategic thinking and inspiring relationship-building. Learn how to attain or amplify the qualities that all school leaders keep in motion each day, as well as how to develop, strengthen, and convey five essential traits of leader credibility: trustworthiness, competence, dynamism, immediacy, and forward thinking. Without leader credibility, schools will be stuck in the status quo and improvement will be an illusion. With leaders deemed credible by teachers and students, real school transformation can be a reality.
Two-Part Series: Data for School Improvement
October 11 & 25, 9-10:30 a.m. (all sessions)
Presenter: Carrie Sanchez, Director of Leadership & Learning, North Point Educational Service Center
October 11: Part 1: Making Your Data Meaningful
Data does not have to be a nemesis for building leaders. Data can be useful and meaningful and NOT a vehicle for confrontation. Part 1 of this two-part series will prepare leaders for the upcoming release of EVAAS and value-added data. Learn about the reports available and how to navigate the platform to maximize the information. This session will also connect to the Ohio Improvement Process (OIP) framework to help leaders identify critical areas of need and explore root cause analysis of the data available.
October 25: Part 2: Making Your Data Meaningful
Part 2 of this series will include a brief review of Part 1 and then continue with deeper learning regarding value-added data, teacher reports, and student reports, and include coaching leaders in the areas of courageous conversations with teacher-based teams and individual teachers, leading change with data, and teaching teachers to use data for decision making. This session will also connect to the Ohio Improvement Process (OIP) framework to help leaders identify critical areas of need through instructional practices, as well as student outcomes, plan for implementation by reviewing SMART goals associated with instructional initiatives within their building and districts, and implement and monitor to use data tools and resources to have meaningful and change-inspiring with teachers, teams, and departments.
A Deep Dive into Ohio's School Report Cards: Achievement and Early Literacy
November 2, 9-10:30 a.m.
Presenters: Rachel Wakefield, Interim Director of Accountability. Andrea Spitnale, Social Science Research Specialist, Office of Accountability, Ohio Department of Education.
Join the Ohio Department of Education’s Office of Accountability for a deep dive into the achievement and early literacy components on the 2023 report cards. Explore the business rules for each component, as well as where to find data associated with each component. Leave with a clear understanding of the calculations and data sources behind the achievement and early literacy components on the Ohio school report cards.
Master Scheduling: Team Time IS Possible
November 29, 9-10:30 a.m.
Presenter: Carrie Sanchez, Director of Leadership & Learning, North Point Educational Service Center
Collaboration, data review, assessment sharing, student services—all of these elements are critical for student success. But when can they happen? Successful master schedules begin with the mindset of the leader. Only the school leader can truly understand the unique nuances of the entire school, and with that comes awesome leadership opportunities! This session will also connect to the Ohio Improvement Process (OIP) framework to help leaders identify critical needs, plan for implementation (it is so much more complex than just publishing a schedule), and Implement and monitor in order to fully determine the success or struggles within the school. Don't get stuck in, "This is how we have always done it" and open your thinking to new alternatives!