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Collaborating with experts to support schools and deliver professional development, ensuring the success of all students.



VT-HEC & VPA Partner for the Third Year

Using the Principles of Neuroscience to Lead in the 21st Century

For the third consecutive year, the VT-HEC is partnering with the VPA to offer coordinated leadership supports to help administrators and their leadership teams utilize what we know about the brain and learning to work through the ever-expanding list of requirements and initiatives to establish a clear direction tailored to their school and community. The supports include:

  • Bring Coherence & Relevance to Your Leadership Work Through Brain-Based Principles – A strand at the VPA Leadership Academy with Bill Rich and Val Gardner on August 5 and 6. Participants will be using the principles from research on the brain and learning to make sense of the many competing demands that face school leaders to chart a coherent course for their school and staff.  (Register at vpaonline.org.)
  •  “The Best Start Ever” – Jump-Start the Year Planning Together  This year we are again offering the option for strand participants from 2013, 2014 or 2015 to participate in supported planning sessions on the afternoon of August 6 and August 7 following the VPA Leadership Academy. Strand participants can have members of their school leadership teams join them in applying the principles covered in the strand to their planning for the new year with the help of Val Gardner, Bill Rich and other TASS consultants. Administrators who participated in this planning last year reported they got off to “the best start ever”. For more info contact Dennis.kane@vthec.org
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We are very excited to be working with the VPA to continue this component of our program.  It is clear that many school leaders struggle to maintain a clear focus given all of the challenges and demands they face.  It has been our experience that school leaders that can establish a clear direction based on common principles and develop a coordinated plan for the coming year have the best chance of hitting the ground running and making significant progress during the year.  We believe that these learning and planning opportunities will help leaders accomplish these goals.

This opportunities is also available to the schools that are working with our TASS, Teaching All Secondary Students, program that supports middle and secondary school improvement.  Recently, three Vermont schools were awarded grants working through the League of Innovative Schools and the Great Schools Partnerships – all three of those schools have worked with TASS. They were the only Vermont schools to win this very competitive grant.

One can’t do much better than having experts such as Val and Bill on hand to assist leaders in applying these basic principles of learning and behavior to the work of their schools and staff.  Together Bill and Val make a powerful team that works to practice what they preach by designing learning opportunities that give participants the content, coaching and feedback they need to apply the new learning to their own situations.

Art Cernosia’s Legal Updates – Save the Dates

 What You Need to Know  – Legal Updates 2015-2016
Nationally recognized education law expert, Art Cernosia, Esq. will offer his only two 2015-16 Vermont presentations working with the VT-HEC again next year.  Art’s presentations are known for their comprehensive review of education-related legal issues and court decisions and his practical perspective on how they affect Vermont schools.  Art will be presenting the Special Education Law Update & Review on October 13, 2015 and his  general Legal Update & Review on November 16, 2015, both at the Capitol Plaza in Montpelier. 

This will be your only chance to see & hear Art in Vermont next year so hold these dates.  Rarely, will you be able to hear so much about where the legal winds are blowing and how they affect schools, Boards, leaders, teachers and students in Vermont and rarely, will you be able to hear such information from such a dynamic and knowledgeable presenter. We at the VT-HEC are very excited to be working with Art who has kept a special focus on what is happening in Vermont even as he spends time traveling the country to learn and present about the ever more complex legal world surrounding education today.