Crisis has a way of bringing us face-to-face with what we care about most. The pandemic has been that for teaching, and especially, for learning. A 3-year-old Colorado 6-12 school’s vision for learning was clouded by the challenges of start-up complexities, enrollment, parent demands, student needs, and not-yet-embedded culture. Then COVID hit. Add remote, hybrid, and in-class learning, kids missing-in-action, drifting relationships, led a committed faculty to return to their original vision for the school. The upheaval of pandemic freed them to take the courage to do what they always planned: relationship, social-emotional learning, experiential, project-based interdisciplinary, and learned driven. Hear about how this vision is driving changes and transformation at Compass Community Collaborative School so kids leave with a portfolio, a post-secondary plan, and a clear path to becoming impactful world citizens.
What you’ll learn:
- Rediscover your vision for teaching and learning
- Focus on the values you know are key
- Use disruption to change your focus and practice
- Zero-in on “before and still” problems to emerge stronger
Who should attend:
- Superintendents, principals, central office administrators
- Curriculum and instruction leaders, instructional coaches
- Frustrated teachers wanting to make a difference
- Counselors focused on social-emotional learning
Our Speakers:
Dr. Mortimore’s leadership roles in education include superintendent, principal, consultant, and elementary, middle school, high school, and college teacher. Camille has an extensive background in organizational development, administrative leadership, personalized educator professional learning, and learner-centered, place-based, and project-based learning. After earning a doctoral degree from Marquette University in Educational Policy and Leadership, Camille became the Founder and Head Learner of a Milwaukee central city expeditionary charter school. As Foundry’s Chief Learning Officer, Camille shares her breadth of experience and wisdom with innovating educators and leaders.
As a public educator in Fort Collins, CO, I’ve been focused on not just my students’ learning but my own for the past twenty-three years. I believe that the best teachers are also lifelong students, which is one of the reasons I’m drawn to the work we are doing at Compass Community Collaborative School. This has become even more important in this time of a pandemic. Our school has to become more nimble in order to meet our students’ and staff’s needs. And we are providing a better learning environment as a result. Prior to opening Compass, I taught biology (and many other science classes) and epistemology at the high school and middle school levels. I also worked as an International Baccalaureate Program Coordinator for 10 years as well as an IB Workshop Leader, Educational Consultant, and Program Evaluator working with schools all over North America. In addition, I also acted as the Associate Director of the Colorado State University Writing Project for several years, working with teachers across the state of CO to help improve literacy for all K-12 learners. Influenced by all of these experiences, we believe that each individual student’s identity and power are at the center of our philosophy and work at Compass.
