Be a Connected Communicator - Supporting educators who serve students with exceptionalities requires exceptional connected communication. When teachers, administrators, and caregivers reach out to us, they are often in a heightened state. When we are sitting with families in difficult meetings, emotions can run high -both for them and for us! Learn the skills to de-escalate, allow them to catch your calm, and work through the challenges, all without losing your cool. Then, build the capacity of your staff to reduce the number of difficult conversations you have to have in the first place.

Build Capacity - Imagine if the teachers and support staff you support had the skills to create a culture of connection with students & families, reduce the number of behavioral incidents, and de-escalate students who are dysregulated? When educators have the tools to be connected communicators, our students are better able to learn! Learn how to share the easy to implement strategies, practical tools, and sentence stems with those educators who need it most.

Leave Empowered - You will leave this pre-conference session with the tools to handle whatever communication challenges come your way AND with the tools needed to build the capacity of your staff so you can improve the outcomes of our students. Join us!

Presenters:
  

Erika Bare has been an educator for over 20 years, currently serving as the Superintendent in the South Umpqua School District in Oregon. She began her career as a special educator and then spent 14 years supporting students with exceptionalities, their families, and educators first as a building administrator and then director of special education & assistant superintendent. She is passionate about supporting all students through individual supports to reach their unlimited potential.

Tiffany Burns loves working with kids. In her two decades in education, she taught elementary, middle, high school, and university students. She has been an administrator since 2012 and an elementary school principal for the past nine years. This year, Tiffany is on a professional sabbatical and returning to her teaching roots as a faculty instructor in the Education Department at Southern Oregon University. She is also thrilled to have more time to dedicate to growing the Connected Communicator Movement and helping educators across the nation gain skills to transform behavior and build a culture of connection in their educational communities.

Together they wrote Connecting Through Conversation: A Playbook for Talking with Students