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Fluency Fun! Engaging K-2 Readers with Brain-Based Phonics, Routines & Repetition
St Clair ROE ILGet ready for a day filled with fun, engagement, and foundational literacy skills! Christina Decarbo https://www.missdecarbo.com/ shares tons of games, activities, research, and ideas that will help students form strong phoneme-grapheme connections and phonemic awareness throughout the day. You’ll leave with quick but effective foundational practices that you can use during carpet time, morning meetings, small-groups, transition times, whole-group lessons, and more. Christina will share what, why, and how to implement a daily visual, auditory, and blending drill for all readers or various skill levels. Discover research-aligned and differentiated activities for both decoding and encoding skills, as well as games and hands-on activities for word recognition practice. We’ll end our day by studying how to build fluency skills within our K-2 classrooms so that students acquire both accuracy and automaticity in their reading skills. Christina shares ready-to-go routines and research-based strategies that move students from the word level to the sentence level, and beyond! Learn how to model and practice accuracy, phrasing, rate, and prosody while having fun and boosting confidence!
Registration closes July 22 at 12:00pm.
Free – $125.00
You’re Invited! A Celebration of K-2 Vocabulary, Knowledge Building & Little Writer Success
St. Clair ROEThe science of reading is not just about phonics! In this jam-packed day of learning, we’ll dive into the language comprehension strands of the reading rope. Christina DeCarbo https://www.missdecarbo.com/ shows you how to cultivate a classroom of little learners who love words! We’ll study best practices for vocabulary instruction, and discover the importance of oral language, direct and indirect vocabulary instruction, morphology, context, word play, and more! In addition to vocabulary, Christina shares the importance of background knowledge and the critical role it plays in our students’ comprehension skills. Discover creative whole-group and small-group activities that cement understanding and result in rich discussions. Then, Christina shows you how to connect your students’ content knowledge to writing through developmentally appropriate, purposeful, and explicit sentence-level work. Come ready to participate in tons of engaging, sentence-building activities that will turn your students into sentence superstars. Christina leaves you with a toolbox of purposeful comprehension, vocabulary, and writing practices, and a heart that is overflowing with literacy excitement!
Registration closes 7.23.26 at 12:00pm
Free – $125.00
My Kids Can’t Write: How to Advance Achievement through K-8 Cross Curricular Writing
St. Clair ROECountless teachers have identified a problem in their classrooms: their kids either can't--or don't want to--write. Cognitive writing (Goodwin & Rouleau, 2023) provides a sustainable, research-based approach to embedding writing into all content areas. Like it or not, we are all writing teachers, and we have a responsibility to ensure writing is embedded into instruction across the disciplines. That said, encouraging kids to write in our classrooms can help all teachers reach their instructional goals: research shows that when kids write about what they've learned, it's more likely to stick. What's more, when we engage students in reflective writing, students are more likely to internalize what they've learned about themselves and their own learning habits. All of this can be achieved with cognitive writing (i.e., "journaling"), a structured and sustainable practice that not only gets kids learning to write, it gets them writing to learn, as well.
In our session, we will begin by connecting research to practice, exploring Visible Learning effect sizes that support journaling, such as summarizing (.62), self-reflection (.81), and constructivist teaching (.92). Then, participants will experience journaling to better understand the types of tasks that lend themselves to cognitive writing, a lesson structure that involves journaling, and scaffolds different students require to benefit from journaling. To conclude, participants will reflect on their time in our session, identifying tangible action steps for exploring journaling their schools or classrooms.
Learning Intention:
We will learn to use journaling as a means for writing across the disciplines, building students' stamina for on-demand writing tasks, and generating student-driven evidence of learning.
Success Criteria:
We will know participants have learned this when:
- they can explain the research that supports using cognitive writing across all subject areas.
- they can identify structures and scaffolds to support cognitive writing in the classroom.
- they can identify 1-3 action steps to begin exploring cognitive writing in their classrooms.
Paul Emerich France is a National Board–Certified Teacher, literacy specialist, keynote speaker, and author of Make Teaching Sustainable, Reclaiming Personalized Learning, and Humanizing Distance Learning and My Kids Can't Write, K-5. His work with #SustainableTeaching stems from this principle: to make teaching sustainable, we need to first and foremost value the humanity of teachers and create conditions in which they can thrive.
France has contributed to a number of online and print education-related publications, including ASCD’s Educational Leadership. His work has been featured at SXSW EDU and in The New Yorker, WIRED, and The Atlantic. He currently consults with teachers, schools, and school districts and offers educational support to families in pods and one-on-one settings.
Registration closes Thursday, July 23 at 12:00pm.
Free – $180.00
My Kids Can’t Spell: K-5 Inquiry-Based Word Study in 5 Easy Steps
St. Clair ROE
The research is clear: students will not learn how to spell if they are not explicitly taught. However, this doesn't mean we have to go back to the old ways of teaching spelling, where students are given groups of random, unrelated words, expected to memorize them without context or authentic application. We can "walk and chew gum," as they say: we can use progressive practices, such as inquiry-based learning, in tandem with tried-and-true research on how students learn to spell, in order to cultivate engaging lessons around English orthography that are also sustainable for teachers.
Building off of the Structured Word Inquiry approach (Bowers & Bowers, 2020), we will explore four key questions for exploring *any* word in the English language:
(1) What does it mean?
(2) How is it built?
(3) What are its relatives?
(4) How is it pronounced?
In this interactive session, teachers will be immersed in several word explorations, understanding how to guide students through these four questions in monosyllabic, phonetically spelled words (i.e., cat, flop, snake); high-frequency words commonly labeled as "sight words" or "red words" (i.e., does, have, pretty); and multi-syllabic words built from morphological constructions (i.e., happy, information, action).
Learning Intention:
We are learning how to sustainably and systematically teach spelling using inquiry, in an effort to increase student engagement and investment, meanwhile growing spelling achievement in order to boost writing fluency.Success Criteria:
- Participants will recall the four questions for exploring spelling patterns through inquiry-based instruction.
- Teachers will identify tools to explore etymology, orthography, and word relatives (including Etymonline, WordSearcher, word matrices, and word sorts).
- Teachers apply tools for exploring spelling to create their own exploration for a commonly misspelled word.
Paul Emerich France is a National Board–Certified Teacher, literacy specialist, keynote speaker, and author of Make Teaching Sustainable, Reclaiming Personalized Learning, and Humanizing Distance Learning and My Kids Can't Write, K-5. His work with #SustainableTeaching stems from this principle: to make teaching sustainable, we need to first and foremost value the humanity of teachers and create conditions in which they can thrive.
France has contributed to a number of online and print education-related publications, including ASCD’s Educational Leadership. His work has been featured at SXSW EDU and in The New Yorker, WIRED, and The Atlantic. He currently consults with teachers, schools, and school districts and offers educational support to families in pods and one-on-one settings.
Registration closes Friday, July 24 at 12:00pm.
Free – $180.00
K-12 Curriculum Director Roundtable
St. Clair County ROEWhether your role is at the central office, a principal, assistant principal, director, specialist or instructional coach, we welcome everyone to this free event. Dr. Gegi Ra-El (St. Clair ROE # 50's Assistant Superintendent) will share a brief overview of curricular and school improvement tools and resources via the ROE LeadHubs website.
https://www.roeleadhubs.org/ Participants will explore information regarding support for organizational leaders within the realm of school improvement. Each attendee should bring a fully charged device to this session. After this session, we will debrief with IARSS, ISBE, ROE # 50 and local district updates. Registration closes August 28 at 12:00pm.
Free
“If the Shoe Fits: Understanding Parent Personalities in Today’s Classroom”
St. Clair County ROE
Every teacher has met them—the hovering helper, the invisible parent, the over-involved problem solver. This interactive workshop uses humor and relatable “shoe analogies” to explore common parent types educators encounter. Participants will reflect on real-life scenarios, share experiences, and learn practical strategies for building positive, productive relationships with every kind of parent—no matter what shoes they’re wearing.
Registration closes 4-5 days prior to the event date.
Free – $100.00
AA #4169 – Mastering Tough Talks: Difficult Conversations Don’t Have to Be Difficult
St. Clair County ROE
PDC Member Districts - $155.00 Non PD Co-op Districts $200.00 (lunch included on site) Participants should bring a fully charged device to this session.
In every organization, team, and relationship, the ability to navigate tough conversations defines the difference between dysfunction and growth. The goal of this Administrator Academy is to equip participants with the tools, mindset, and courage to turn difficult conversations into defining moments of clarity, connection, and progress. This is an interactive academy facilitated by a certified Jon Gordon Companies trainer, Dr. Kelly D. Stewart, IASA 2014 Illinois Superintendent of the Year, which focuses on two things:
1. Having the Conversations to Get Better
2. Getting Better at Having the Conversations
There is some pre-work that is required to be completed prior to the event date (more information will be sent out closer to the event date). Registration closes Monday, August 31 at 10:00am. Cancellations must be made prior to August 31 at 10:00am or the amount is non-refundable.
PD or AA credit is available - the application/dissemination must be completed and submitted prior to departure on September 4, 2026.
$155.00 – $200.00
Classroom Management for Beginning Teachers
St. Clair County ROE
Jim Kestner will present his nationally recognized program in a high-energy session dedicated to helping teachers in their early career years address a wide range of classroom management issues. Teachers who attend will find strategies that lead students to make good choices, replacing controlling behaviors with strategies that lead students to monitor and take responsibility for their own behavior. Specifically, the session will address the following:
* Arranging the environment to improve student engagement
* Developing and implementing effective classroom policies
* Addressing common challenging behaviors
* Difference between controlling behaviors and building good decision-making skills
* Translating the concept of consistency to a variety of students and settings
* Establishing a character-building classroom culture
* Teaching self-respect, self-discipline, and responsibility
* Self-esteem vs. self-respect
* Grading systems that encourage student effort and engagement
* Assessing student behavior
* Parent and administrator involvement
* Keeping and maintaining good records
Registration closes 4-5 days prior to the event date. Time will be given for lunch (on your own).
Free – $100.00
How to Embed Essential Literacy Skills Into Your Content Area For Student Success in Grades 4-12
St. Clair County ROEAll learning is based on the mastery of essential literacy skills, and in this presentation, educators will discover tools they need to embed literacy into all subjects. Comprehension is based on skill-building strategies that encourage purpose and engagement; as a result, educators can effectively teach those literacy skills to support developing students as they learn to read, write, and think critically. In this presentation, Peg will offer an overview of the seven essential literacy skills where educators will discover how to: expand their teaching methods to include literacy skills, introduce literacy into daily lesson planning, embed reading comprehension into any subject area, and scaffold instruction using literacy strategies to boost subject-area comprehension. This engaging, interactive session will be facilitated by Peg Grafwallner, M.Ed (Instructional Coach, Reading Specialist, Author, National Presenter) www.peggrafwallner.com
Peg Grafwallner, M.Ed., is an Instructional Coach/Reading Specialist in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with nearly 30 years of experience. As an English teacher, at-risk educator, instructional coach and reading specialist, she has taught advanced English and developing readers. Currently, Peg collaborates with teachers to seamlessly embed literacy (reading, writing, speaking, and listening) into their discipline without disrupting the integrity of the content.
When collaborating with educators, Peg models, coaches, and assists teachers in creating comprehensive literacy lessons meant to enhance skill-building. As the parent of a son who was labeled “gifted-and-talented” and a daughter who received special education services, Peg offers a unique educational lens that focuses on supporting students of all abilities in realizing their potential in the classroom and beyond.
Peg is a blogger, author, national, and international presenter whose topics include coaching, literacy, pedagogy, and inclusion. Her articles have appeared in Exceptional Parent, The Illinois Reading Journal, The Missouri Reader, The Wisconsin English Journal, and the WSRA Journal. She has written for several websites and blogs including: Edutopia, Cult of Pedagogy, Education Week’s Q&A with Larry Ferlazzo, and many more. She has also appeared on numerous podcasts including: Anchored in Education with Dr. E. Scott England, Class Tech Tips with Dr. Monica Burns, Cult of Pedagogy with Jen Gonzalez, and several others.
Peg is the author of Lessons Learned from the Special Education Classroom: Creating Opportunities for All Students to Listen, Learn and Lead; Ready to Learn: The FRAME Model for Optimizing Student Success; Not Yet … And That’s Ok: How Productive Struggle Fosters Student Learning and most recently, Clearing the Path for Developing Learners: Essential Literacy Skills to Support Achievement in Every Content Area.
Peg received a bachelor’s degree in English from Cardinal Stritch University and a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction, a mentoring certification, and an alternative education certification from Marian College. In addition, she earned a reading specialist certification from UW-Milwaukee.
Peg Grafwallner was named one of the 20 best teacher bloggers in 2017 by KQED.
- Time will be given for lunch (on your own).
Free – $125.00
AA # 4050 Illinois Performance Evaluation – Initial & Retraining for Principals & Assistant Principals
St. Clair County ROE
PDC Member District $350.00, Non PDC Member $375.00 (lunch is included on site both days)
To be eligible to attend, each participant (initial or retraining) must complete and submit ISBE-required pre-work at least 72 hours (September 4, 2026 3:00pm) before the training. Registrants will receive handouts and detailed instructions for the pre-work at least one week prior to the workshop.
Participants will need to bring a fully charged laptop to this academy. Dr. Gary Kelly will be facilitating this session as attendees will synthesize the School Leader Paradigm to understand the personal intelligences, knowledge, and skills necessary for school leaders to effectively lead a learning organization. Participants will evaluate the research base to communicate the impact that effective school leaders have on a learning organization; analyze the School Leader Evaluation Plan to discern how the process grows school leaders' personal intelligences and leadership skills that actualize school improvement and student growth goals; and critique Professional Practice and Student Growth Cycles of Inquiry to assess the approaches of each to a school's Problems of Practice.
The Illinois Performance Evaluation Advisory Council (PEAC) selected the School Leader Evaluation Plan as the state’s new default principal and assistant principal evaluation plan beginning July 1, 2024. Developed by the Illinois Principals Association in collaboration with 13 other state principals’ associations from across the United States, the School Leader Evaluation Plan (based on the School Leader Paradigm) was developed to assist school districts with the implementation of a school leader evaluation system that is relevant and useful. While Illinois school districts have the opportunity to choose whether to adopt the School Leader Evaluation Plan to evaluate their principals and assistant principals, the state-required principal and assistant principal evaluator training has been rewritten and will focus on the School Leader Evaluation Plan.
Starting on July 1, 2024, this two-day, in-person academy (AA#4050) will serve as the official training for educators seeking initial training qualification or retraining to be legally qualified to conduct evaluations of principals and assistant principals. The previous principal evaluator training (#2000, #1865, and #3000) will be discontinued as of June 30, 2024.
Registration closes September 1 at 10:00am. Cancellations must be made on or before September 1 at 10:00am or the amount will be non-refundable.