2027 Featured Themes

Supporting school behavioral health begins with empowering educators with effective, practical tools to build classroom self-efficacy. We explore 7 research-based low-intensity strategies to increase academic engagement and prevent challenging behavior, including free online resources to learn more, implement with fidelity, and support schoolwide professional learning for all faculty and staff.

Presenters:

• David James Royer, Associate Professor, University of Louisville
• Kathleen Lynne Lane, Roy A. Roberts Distinguished Professor, University of Kansas
• Mark Matthew Buckman, Assistant Research Professor, University of Kansas  
• Elise Marie Sarasin, Doctoral Student, University of Kansas  

Girls and women with ADHD are often overlooked: bright, compliant, helpful, high-achieving, anxious, emotionally intense, exhausted, or “too capable” to raise concern. In schools, these students may be missed when ADHD is understood primarily through disruptive, hyperactive, male-typical presentations. This session examines how gendered expectations, masking, perfectionism, internalized distress, comorbidity, and referral bias contribute to the under identification of girls with ADHD.

Participants will explore the serious consequences of missed identification across the lifespan, including academic underachievement, shame, peer and relationship difficulties, burnout, mental health concerns, self-harm risk, substance use vulnerability, unplanned pregnancy, intimate partner violence, and vocational instability.

The session will also turn the lens toward women-identifying special educators, including those who recognize their own ADHD only after years of overfunctioning, burnout, or supporting students with similar profiles. Participants will leave with practical, school-based strategies for more accurately recognizing ADHD, improving referral and evaluation practices, reducing stigma, and creating supports that help students and educators thrive.

Presenter:

• Jeremy Didier, LSCSW, LMAC, ADHD-CCSP
   

Effective behavior intervention planning involves specific skills, such as understanding how to clearly define target behaviors and goals, how to consider function when analyzing concerns, including a variety of antecedent, teaching, positive and corrective consequence strategies, and specifying procedures for data collection and monitoring intervention progress and fidelity. Too often staff are tasked to design intervention plans without the technical knowledge to apply each of these skills. In this session, participants will learn about each of these components and how to ensure that your school/district works to empower any staff member who is part of designing intervention plans (teachers, counselors, administrators/deans) to build this critical skill set.

Presenter:

• Jessica Sprick, Safe and Civil Schools

Effective co-teaching doesn’t happen by accident; it requires intentional design. In this opening session, we examine the psychological and structural barriers that too often keep educators working in isolation.

First: Developing a collaborative culture is intentional. Then: It includes personal commitment, relational trust, shared norms and procedures, and application in teams such as grade level or department and MTSS and IEP, creating psychological safety.

Presenter: 

• Marilyn Friend, Professor Emerita, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

How do we move from "sharing a room" to "sharing a vision"? This mid-strand session focuses on the practical application of collaborative teaching. We dive into high-leverage co-teaching models that maximize student support and streamline lesson planning.

Presenters: 

• Tammy Barron, Associate Professor/Exceptional Children Director, Western Carolina University 
• Brad Witzel, Adelaide Worth Daniels Distinguished Professor, Western Carolina University

The final session expands the lens to include the entire school ecosystem. We explore how to bridge the gap between teachers, specialists, families, and community partners to create a holistic support network for every learner.