National Heritage Academies Hosts Week-long Professional Development Conference

National Heritage Academies (NHA) recently wrapped up the fourth annual Leadership Summit, which took place at the JW Marriott and Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids. The purpose of Leadership Summit is to bring together school leaders from all 88 NHA schools for a week-long professional development.

There were approximately 550 attendees, including deans, principals, directors of school quality, senior directors of school quality, NHA executives, and Service Center participants. School leaders had the opportunity to learn from a variety of presenters and subject matter experts.

Fifty-five presenters lead participants through a handful of sessions to expand their knowledge when it comes to working in our schools, to name a few:

• CPR training.
• Building a cohesive leadership team.
• Team 1 at NHA.
• Reducing anxiety in the classroom.
• Safety reboot and refresher.
• Top ten section 504 myths.
• Translating data analysis intro instructional action: improving word solving and fluency skills.
• Data savvy leadership.
• Leveraging your DiSC style as a leader.
• Deescalation training.
• A variety of curriculum and instruction discussions.

To add a creative and inspirational touch to the week, a Moral Focus gallery walk was present throughout. The gallery walk displayed artwork that was created by the winners of our Moral Focus Art Contest, and each piece represented a Moral Focus virtue which is instilled in all NHA schools to teach a strong moral identity in all students. The virtues represented in the student artwork were perseverance, compassion, gratitude, and courage. The artists represented throughout the gallery walk include:

• Michelle Yang, seventh grade, Achieve Charter Academy.
• Shambhav Saikrishna, first grade, Achieve Charter Academy.
• Ah’Zarriah Blankumsee, fifth grade, Alliance Academy of Cincinnati.
• Rumaisa Hanif, eighth grade, Brooklyn Scholars Charter School.
• Tuong Ho, first grade, Hamtramck Academy.
• Abigail Reid, seventh grade, Matthews Charter Academy.
• Sonaj Sanders, eighth grade, Metro Charter Academy.
• Imsaat Malik, first grade, Plymouth Scholars Charter Academy.
• Valerie Verlan, fifth grade, Rolesville Charter Academy.

In addition to professional development, participants attended the 2019 Eagle Awards, which recognizes individuals, teams, and schools for the incredible work they do to transform the lives of our students every day. Check out a recap of the night here.

It was a great week spent bonding and learning with leaders of the NHA family!