Feeling overwhelmed with the expectations being placed on teachers, leaders and educational systems to respond to the diverse needs of our learners?  Ensuring success for all students is a moral imperative for all schools, but takes a highly coordinated framework of structures and processes within a school to maximize the collective capacity of the team.  Come learn about Collaborative Response, an organizational mindset that involves some fundamental shifts for schools and districts, such as layering collaborative team structures, transforming how we talk about student needs, focusing on students close to meeting expectations through thoughtful organization of data and evidence and ensuring tiering of supports rather than students.  Simple shifts that emerge through a focus on Collaborative Response and the good news is that some likely already exist in your building!  Numerous school and districts examples, as well as access to a large number of resources, will be provided for school leaders wishing to join hundreds of schools across Alberta and beyond using Collaborative Response to ensure high levels of success for students and staff!

Kurtis Hewson

Kurtis Hewson has been a teacher, vice-principal, and principal, as well as taught at the post-secondary level.  With over a decade of experience as an administrator, Kurtis has championed the call for collaborative structures in schools to ensure success for all students.  In addition to two finalist awards from Alberta Excellence in Teaching program and an Edwin Parr award recipients for excellence in his first year of teaching, Kurtis was an honoree for the ASCD Outstanding Young Educator Award in 2010.  Kurtis is one of five Alberta principals featured in Reflecting on Leadership for Learning: Case Studies of Five Alberta Elementary School Principals, addressing exemplary leadership practices in elementary schools in Alberta. He is the co-founder of Jigsaw Learning, a co-author of the text Envisioning a Collaborative Response Model, and currently works with districts and schools across the province establishing Collaborative Response Model frameworks, interacting with thousands of educators annually.