2026 SAIS Annual Conference

Are you a team member responsible for administering your school’s upcoming accreditation process? This workshop includes an overview of the accreditation process and offers the opportunity to ask questions in an informal setting.

Pre-registration required. Add this workshop when registering for the annual conference. Contact [email protected] with any questions.

Name how everyday classroom practice is already changing as AI becomes a routine part of student work. Center the real questions educators are wrestling with now: how to design assignments that still demand thinking, how to read and respond to student work when AI support is present, and how to hold onto clarity and rigor as familiar classroom routines begin to shift.
Anchor the conversation in current research on AI, cognition, and judgment, while sharing instructional approaches currently in use at Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School. Treat AI not as something to manage or police, but as a condition that changes how teaching decisions have to be made.
Leave having seen a clear instructional framework and concrete evidence of its impact in classrooms, along with shared language to guide faculty conversations, align expectations around learning and assessment, and support school-wide responses to changes that feel significant, disruptive, and increasingly unavoidable.

HR compliance/employee relations does not have to be tricky. This interactive workshop takes you beyond theory and into the real world of workplace compliance challenges. Through engaging scenarios and group discussions, you'll tackle the kinds of situations that keep HR professionals up at night, from performance management gone wrong to accommodation requests that aren't quite what they seem.


Whether you're navigating FMLA vs. ADA, handling difficult terminations, or addressing workplace investigations, this session gives you a safe space to explore solutions, debate approaches, and learn from your peers. We'll break down frequently encountered scenarios using a mix of case studies, role-play elements, and collaborative problem-solving that makes compliance training actually enjoyable.


Walk away with practical frameworks, confidence in your decision-making, and a toolkit of strategies you can implement immediately. No boring lectures, just real talk about real situations, with actionable insights you'll use long after the session ends. Bring your questions, your war stories, and your best judgment!

Independent schools are operating within a widening web of interconnected crises – educational, cultural, economic, technological, and ecological – that increasingly shape what schools can do and who they can become. In response, many institutions adopt an “abundance” strategy: adding programs, initiatives, and innovations in an effort to remain competitive. Yet this expansion often produces the opposite of what leaders intend:  greater fragmentation, mission drift, and institutional incoherence.

This session invites participants to explore how systemic dynamics such as Goodhart’s Law (when metrics become targets), Jevons’ Paradox (efficiency driving greater consumption), and multipolar traps – situations where individually rational choices lead to collectively destructive outcomes – shape decision-making in independent schools.

Participants will examine how well-intentioned initiatives can become absorbed into existing institutional incentives rather than transforming them and consider how schools might restore coherence between mission, culture, incentives, and practice. Attendees will leave with conceptual frameworks and practical questions for navigating complexity while preserving the deeper purposes of education.

In an era of rising costs and intense talent competition, a standard benefits package is no longer enough to sustain a thriving school culture. This session empowers leaders to move beyond "surface-level perks" and build a systemic Employee Wellness Program that anchors faculty retention. Using a holistic framework, participants will analyze how to support the educator experience through the four dimensions of wellness: Mind (mindfulness and creativity), Body (nutrition and physical/mental health), Relationships (connection and belonging), and Purpose (professional development).
Attendees will identify strategies to

• Audit and activate underutilized resources within existing insurance plans.
• Cultivate high-impact partnerships with local organizations for community-based support.
• Design a sustainable roadmap that transforms wellness from an individual burden into a shared institutional priority.

Leave this session with a practical toolkit to reimagine hiring and school culture through the lens of comprehensive well-being.