Allison Rodman will take the ENGAGE Mainstage to kick-off day two of the conference. She is an author, the Founder and Chief Learning Officer of The Learning Loop, a certified Framework Specialist with The Danielson Group, and a ASCD faculty member. Allison will share the importance of building collective efficacy in schools as a powerful driver of student achievement. Through stories of shared vulnerability, demonstrated strength, and continuous growth, we will discover how true learning organizations emerge not from flawless execution but from the courage to fail forward together. She will explore why "unreasonable hospitality" - those unexpected acts of care and attention - creates the psychological safety necessary to for teams to take risks, innovate, and ultimately transform their practice. Allison will reveal how learning communities focused on continuous growth create environments where both students and adults flourish. Together, we will leave with a framework for building fierce commitment to both excellence and belonging, understanding that transformation requires both breaking through barriers and breaking bread together.
To close the ENGAGE Conference, best-selling author Allen Levi, and Mountain Brook Schools' Superintendent, Dicky Barlow invite us into a powerful, deeply human moment of reflection. Through the story of Theo of Golden, we are reminded that long after the strategies, standards, and tools fade, what endures is how we made our students feel, and whether they were truly seen.
In a world moving faster and becoming more driven by technology, this closing session calls us back to what matters most: slowing down, listening closely, and choosing connection. It is a heartfelt reminder that every student carries a story, and the simple act of noticing, valuing, and believing in them can be transformative.
Expect to leave moved, grounded, and reconnected to your purpose, because the most powerful impact we make in education does not come from what we teach, but from how deeply we care.
