NAPSA’s 40th Anniversary a Hit!
PPS: BUILDING A COMMUNITY OF LEADERS

Conference Slide Show

What do Harvard, UCLA, Colorado, Wisconsin, LaSalle Street in Chicago, and the Chicago Blues all have in common? The answer is, of course, that they were
sources of major influences on the great success of the recently concluded NAPSA conference in Chicago, Illinois.

From October 2-5, 2005, the Chicago Holiday Inn-City Center was the gathering place for almost one hundred PPS leaders from around the country for NAPSA’s 40th Annual Conference. Outstanding keynote sessions were provided by Darcy Kriha, Attorney and Partner with Franczek-Sullivan in Chicago; Erick Hartwig, Consultant and PPS Direc­tor in Wisconsin; Jane Ellison, Trainer and Co-director of the Center for Cognitive Coaching in Colorado; Howard Adelman and Linda Taylor, Researchers from UCLA; and, Tony Wagner, Co-director of the Change Leadership Forum at Harvard Univer­sity. By all accounts, this was one of the best slates of national speakers ever brought together for the purpose of creating a shared vision of PPS across the country. We were chal­lenged and pushed to think about how our services leverage impact the success of all students in our nation’s schools.

In addition to the above keynote speakers, there were twelve out-standing breakout sessions on a variety of topics:

On Monday evening, the Soul Papas, a local blues and rock band from St. Charles, Illinois, played for two hours as NAPSA members celebrated NAPSA’s 40th birthday party. An outstanding time was had by all. One of the band members was heard to say, “I didn’t know teachers had so much fun!”

While the title of this conference was actually intended to be “PPS: Building a Community of LEADERS for 40 Years,” the typo was actually also quite correct … we do continue to learn as we progress in our careers!

Thanks to ALL for their attendance at the conference!