FCSD 4th Annual MTSS Symposium - July 17, 2025

Equip yourself with practical, relationship-centered strategies for preventing and responding to escalated behaviors. This session includes role-play, scripts, and reflection tools to create a safe and supportive classroom environment, helping students regulate their emotions and behavior.

Participants will walk away with a toolkit for de-escalating challenging behaviors, including specific techniques, scripts, and strategies to create a calm and supportive classroom environment.

Literacy skills are like our spine; they hold everything together. For students to retain knowledge, processing skills need to be implemented. This full day workshop will expand your instructional toolbox to include evidence-based literacy practices to get students cognitively engaged and accountable for their learning.

Participants will leave with several practical, cross-disciplinary routines that can be integrated into any unit of instruction no matter the subject area.

Explore how you can use Gemini and SchoolAI to support your professional responsibilities. Learn how to build lesson plans, give you strategies for improving teaching, develop project based learning lessons, and uncover new ideas for differentiation. AI is not just for your professional role, but learn how to put AI in kids hands with our new district license to SchoolAI. Participants will walk away with actionable and practical ways to integrate AI into their classroom planning and instruction. They will also be able to use AI with fundamental literacy and knowledge of potential concerns and biases.

Explore the real story behind the Millennial generation through the lens of Malcolm Harris’s Kids These Days. This engaging session challenges the common stereotypes and takes a deeper look at how economic pressure, rising expectations, and changing social systems have shaped today’s educators.Participants will walk away with a clearer understanding of the challenges Millennial educators face, along with practical ideas to support staff well-being, engagement, and resilience in today’s schools. This session is ideal for school leaders, coaches, and anyone working to build supportive, inclusive work environments.

In this suicide-prevention session for educators, teachers will learn how to recognize signs of mental health distress in students and refer them for help. Suicide Prevention & Student Mental Health Learn to recognize warning signs of suicide, respond appropriately, and connect students with the right supports. This session focuses on prevention strategies, staff roles, and postvention protocols to help students navigate mental health challenges.  Participants will walk away with strategies for identifying warning signs, responding to students in crisis, and supporting mental health prevention and postvention in the school setting

Have you been hearing all the buzz about Total Participation Techniques and Building Thinking Classrooms? Are you interested in seeing what these are all about and getting a feel for what it means to have a thinking classroom with total participation? This session is intended for teachers who are interested in 'dipping their toes' into these sessions before committing to further exploration. 

This session merges The Writing Revolution (Hochman Method) with differentiation and scaffolding techniques, empowering educators to cultivate strong communicators and deepen understanding across all subjects and grade levels. Discover practical strategies to adjust instruction, improve student writing, build analytical skills, and provide tailored support to meet diverse learning needs.

This session is designed to supercharge your Professional Learning Teams (PLTs) and Problem Solving Teams (PSTs) by leveraging the power of collective efficacy. Discover how to overcome common team barriers, build trust, and strengthen collaboration through interactive strategies and a practical framework for meaningful school improvement. Participants will gain actionable tools to enhance team dynamics, foster a culture of support, and drive collective results for ultimately greater student achievement.

In this interactive session, educators will uncover powerful, student-centered strategies that boost engagement, spark curiosity, and make learning more meaningful for all students. Through academic games, collaborative learning structures, and tech-enhanced activities, participants will explore practical ways to create interactive, participatory classrooms that keep students invested.

At the same time, this session will challenge educators to reflect on their role in fostering culturally responsive teaching practices. Anchored in the New York State Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education (CRSE) Framework, participants will explore its four guiding principles and discover how to honor the diverse backgrounds, experiences, and identities of all learners—including Multilingual Learners.

Participants will walk away with ready-to-use engagement tools, technology integrations, and equity-driven practices that foster inclusive, energized classrooms and build stronger school communities.

Explore the real story behind the Millennial generation through the lens of Malcolm Harris’s Kids These Days. This engaging session challenges the common stereotypes and takes a deeper look at how economic pressure, rising expectations, and changing social systems have shaped today’s educators.Participants will walk away with a clearer understanding of the challenges Millennial educators face, along with practical ideas to support staff well-being, engagement, and resilience in today’s schools. This session is ideal for school leaders, coaches, and anyone working to build supportive, inclusive work environments.

In this session, educators will explore the foundations and rationale of standards-based grading (SBG) and its powerful impact on teaching and learning. Participants will examine how performance-based grading strategies more accurately reflect student mastery of content and skills, promote equity, and support meaningful feedback. Through practical examples, collaborative discussion, and reflection, teachers will leave with a clearer understanding of how to align their grading practices with learning standards and empower students through transparent, growth-focused assessment.

Play isn’t a break from learning—it is learning. This session explores how playful, hands-on experiences can boost academic, social-emotional, and cognitive growth for students of all ages. Inspired by Purposeful Play and The Playful Classroom—and aligned with the NYSED Literacy Briefs—educators will discover how to make learning more joyful, rigorous, and meaningful.
In this session, participants will:

• Develop a playful mindset to bring more joy, creativity, and engagement into instruction
• Use structured play to support comprehension, collaboration, and critical thinking
• Balance different types of play to support literacy and curiosity across the curriculum
• Create classroom environments that support student voice, equity, and emotional growth

Participants will break into elementary and secondary groups to explore grade-specific strategies.
Elementary Focus:
Educators of kindergarten and first grade will dive into playful learning with LEGO® bricks. This hands-on segment will go beyond free play, showing how LEGO® can support reading, math, science, and social-emotional learning through intentional, purposeful activities.
Secondary Focus:
Middle and high school educators will explore how to embed play, creativity, and student choice into academic learning. From simulations and debates to design challenges and inquiry-based projects, participants will learn how playful approaches can enhance critical thinking, engagement, and real-world application in older learners—without sacrificing rigor.
Because learning doesn’t start after play—it starts through it. 

What's next? You completed one or both of the study groups on Building Thinking Classrooms and Total Participation, now what? This session is for those colleagues who are ready to collaborate and extend their knowledge while embedding these strategies into their classroom.

Congratulations, you've completed your Amazing Race for professional growth! Now, it's time to gather at The Amazing Synthesis: Ideas for the Road Ahead. This isn't just a finish line; it's a launchpad. In this dynamic session, we'll synthesize the insights, innovations, and inspiration gained throughout our professional development day. You'll have the opportunity to share your key takeaways with colleagues, collaboratively brainstorm solutions, and map out concrete plans for applying your new knowledge and skills. Get ready to transform individual breakthroughs into collective progress as we chart our course for the exciting journey ahead.