2026 ACSA Women in School Leadership Forum

This hands‑on workshop teaches participants how to design, launch, and sustain a monthly Girl Boss Dinner—an inclusive, low‑cost peer networking dinner that cultivates mentorship, sponsorship, emotional support, leadership practice, and measurable career advancement for women in school leadership. Participants will leave with a ready-to-implement plan, tools, and practice in facilitation and outreach. By the end of this session participants will be able to:

1. Create a 6‑month implementation plan for a monthly Girl Boss Dinner for their region/department with defined objectives and metrics (attendance, mentorship matches, career outcomes). (Measured: completed plan template.)
2. Facilitate two evidence‑based conversation formats that foster sponsorship and psychological safety. (Measured: practiced facilitation during workshop role‑plays.)
3. Identify three recruitment and retention strategies to build diverse attendance and sustained engagement. (Measured: checklist completed.)
4. Define and set two measurable impact indicators (e.g., 1 mentor–mentee match/month, 30% increase in promotion discussions among attendees within 12 months) and draft a simple tracking tool. (Measured: filled tracking template.)

Artificial intelligence can save time, improve communication, and support decision-making, but only when it is aligned to the needs, expectations, and policies of your organization. This hands-on workshop moves beyond theory and provides the opportunity to design and build a customized AI assistant using Gemini Gems.


Participants will learn how to create Gems that reflect district frameworks, reinforce responsible and ethical use, and support real tasks such as communication, lesson support, policy guidance, and operational workflows.


This interactive session is designed for educators ready to move from exploration to practical application. By the end of the session, participants will have a functional starting point for a Gemini Gem they can immediately use and refine in their own context.


Participants will leave with:

1. A step-by-step process for designing and building a Gemini Gem aligned to district policies and instructional goals;
2. working draft of a customized AI assistant to support their own workflow or team needs;
3. Strategies for embedding guardrails that promote ethical use, protect data, and maintain academic integrity
4. Practical examples of how Gems can support communication, instruction, and operational efficiency; and Ideas for scaling AI assistants across teams or departments while maintaining consistency and trust

Schools are being asked to evolve at an unprecedented pace: strengthen instruction, respond to student mental health needs, increase engagement, redesign learning experiences, and prepare students for an uncertain future. Amidst this change, one essential question often goes unmeasured: How are the adults doing?

Fifteen districts partnered to better understand educator well-being, leadership, and labor-management collaboration as interconnected conditions that shape whether people thrive, stay, and lead forward together. Findings showed that educators with stronger collaboration and support were more likely to recommend their district as a workplace, remain in the profession, and report higher job satisfaction and well-being.

This session explores how collaborative leadership practices can strengthen educator resilience, reduce depletion, and create conditions for sustainable change. Participants will hear from district and labor leaders about the realities and successes of collaboration; reflect on how personal and organizational values shape decisions during stress and change; explore strategies to strengthen trust, communication, and shared accountability; and engage in a listening and reflection protocol they can immediately use with teams and colleagues.

Participants will leave with practical tools, reflective protocols, and research-informed strategies to strengthen relationships, sustain teams, and cultivate systems where educators and students thrive together.

What happens when strong leadership, trust, and shared purpose align at the highest levels of a school system? This session highlights the partnership between a female Superintendent and an all-female Board of Education, anchored by a collaborative relationship with the Board President that is redefining governance and student-centered decision-making.

From the Superintendent’s hiring, district leaders established a culture grounded in transparency, mutual respect, and continuous communication. Through proactive dialogue, the Superintendent and Board President work together to address community concerns, prepare for challenging agenda items, and navigate controversial topics.

Their unified approach has enabled the district to successfully tackle complex issues, including the adoption of Ethnic Studies, the implications of Mahmoud v. Taylor, instructional program changes, race relations, and grading practices, all while keeping equity, integrity, and student success at the center of every decision.

Participants will gain practical strategies for strengthening Superintendent–Board partnerships, fostering trust, improving governance practices, and leading through complex issues with clarity and cohesion. This session provides actionable tools districts can immediately apply to build responsive leadership teams focused on unity, resilience, and meaningful progress.

Educational leadership spaces often privilege dominant narratives, leaving leaders from historically marginalized communities, particularly women, women of color, and Black women, navigating systems that were not designed with them in mind. This session centers the experience of leading from the margins and offers leaders both validation and practical tools to sustain themselves while continuing equity-centered work.

Grounded in doctoral research, district leadership practice, and lived experience, this workshop explores the power of critical reflection, storytelling as resistance, and intentional coping strategies for leaders operating at the intersections of race, gender, and power. Participants will engage in structured reflection, shared narrative practices, and planning tools designed to support clarity, agency, and resilience when systems fail to change

The session intentionally creates a brave, supportive space where leaders can reflect honestly, hear lived experiences, and leave with renewed purpose and concrete strategies for navigating inequitable systems.

Key Audience Takeaways

1. Explore how race, gender, and systemic inequities shape leadership identity and decision-making.
2. Apply critical reflection and storytelling as tools for clarity, advocacy, and resilience.
3. Identify strategic practices, including support networks, boundary-setting, and preemptive planning, to navigate inequitable systems with clarity and conviction.

Female leaders in education often navigate complex leadership spaces shaped by visibility, representation, resilience, and responsibility. While educational leadership can be deeply rewarding, it can also entail isolation, heightened scrutiny, and pressure to continually prove competence. This interactive session explores how motivation, identity, and sense of belonging influence the leadership experiences of females in education.

Grounded in research and lived leadership experiences, this workshop will provide participants with opportunities to reflect on their leadership journeys, identify strategies to sustain resilience, and examine practices that cultivate belonging and equity within school communities. Participants will leave with practical tools to strengthen leadership identity, support wellness, and foster inclusive leadership spaces for themselves and others.

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
1. Examine how identity and representation shape leadership experiences in education.
2. Identify factors that impact motivation, resilience, and belonging among women leaders.
3. Reflect on personal and systemic barriers that influence leadership sustainability.
4. Apply practical strategies to cultivate resilience, wellness, and inclusive leadership environments

Want to level the playing field and build a strong, internal leadership pipeline? This interactive workshop highlights the inspiration, planning, and implementation of Carlsbad USD’s "Partners in Practice," a multi-tiered mentoring program designed to build a robust, equity-centered leadership pipeline.

This session breaks down how we structured three distinct pathways to support leaders at every career stage: Aspiring Administrators, Assistant Principals, and New Principals. We will dive into the practical realities of our successfully launched Aspiring Administrator series and New Principal mentor program, and share how we are mapping out our Assistant Principal development. We will unpack our complete monthly curriculum, covering operational training, school culture and discipline, and sustainability habits, which align with CPSEL standards. Participants will engage with real-world case studies, practice applying coaching frameworks, and leave with plug-and-play resources to launch their own local mentoring program immediately.

3 Key Audience Takeaways:
1. A comprehensive framework to design and scale a multi-tiered internal leadership pipeline.
2. A complete, month-by-month curriculum blueprint covering school operations, instructional leadership, and wellness.
3. Practical protocols for matching mentors, gathering partner feedback, and establishing non-evaluative coaching structures.

Women in educational leadership experience high levels of stress due to gender bias and demands of the job. In a 2026 Women Leading Ed survey, 92% noted stress as a significant problem and 80% conveyed their work-life balance as poor. The focus will be on positive ways to mitigate the effects of job-related stress–compassion fatigue, secondary trauma, and time as a limited commodity–on one’s health, outlook, and productivity through intentional and systematic self-care.

Women leaders are valuable assets and role models, and it is imperative that we keep them healthy and in the position for the long-term (Pennicooke, 2020). Practicing self-care can be beneficial to ensuring their well-being, and can better position them for success and for maintaining optimum health throughout their careers. Additionally, 93% of teachers requested support for wellness from their administrators, and less than 33% of leaders felt confident to do so (Alpaca, 2026), and could therefore benefit from this presentation.

This session will spotlight self-care as a healing-centered approach that can help women leaders to be proactive and to take positive control of their well-being. Participants will learn about, and be engaged in different types of self-care activities. Our women leaders will leave with their own plans, coping strategies, a commitment to implementing daily self-care, and ways to ensure that their staff and coworkers are also attuned to practicing wellness in the workplace and at home.

Women in school leadership face a unique double burden of navigating systemic gender gaps while managing the high-stakes emotional labor of their communities. Resonant Resilience reframes wellness from a luxury to a strategic leadership imperative. This workshop moves beyond theoretical balance to provide practical, somatic tools for sustainable energy and mental clarity.

Participants will engage in a Resilience Audit to identify burnout triggers and explore work-life integration strategies tailored for high-responsibility roles. This session incorporates experiential nervous system regulation. Leaders will participate in a guided seated breathwork sequence designed to lower cortisol and a brief sound therapy immersion using a quartz crystal bowl. This sound experience facilitates deep cellular relaxation and mental reset, demonstrating how leaders can use sensory tools to maintain composure in high-pressure environments. By the end of the session, attendees will shift from the cycle of exhaustion to a state of empowered, wellness-centered leadership.

Key Takeaways:

1. The Somatic Reset: Breathwork and sound-centering technique to regulate the nervous system during high-stress days.
2. Integration Over Balance: Develop a tools that set sustainable boundaries while meeting varying demands.
3. Modeling Wellness: Acquire actionable habits to lead a wellness-centered culture that improves staff retention and collective resilience.

Leadership is not about waiting to be invited—it is about recognizing your value, using your voice, and stepping confidently into spaces where your influence matters. In this engaging and interactive workshop, participants will identify their leadership strengths, practice articulating those strengths in interviews and professional conversations, and explore strategies for gaining access to decision-making spaces. Participants will also reflect on the importance of mentorship and identify the qualities they seek in a trusted female leader who can offer support, perspective, and advocacy. Whether you are aspiring to your next role or seeking to expand your impact in your current one, this session will equip you with practical tools to become unstoppable.