Youāre invited to host or co-host a 1-day friendly news media meeting with peer educators from your regional geographic area. Learning Counsel will provide mini-workshops, our national trends surveys and analysis and future predictions, unique future-of-learning exercise to experience spatial-temporal AI class calendaring, and schedule local speakers to share out to our national audience. Weāll provide a continental breakfast and box lunches for all, plus help drive registration and select sponsors who can contribute product information of interest.
Who is the Learning Counsel?
We are a research institute and news media hub with 310,000 readers that provides context for educators from ongoing analysis of trends and a deep understanding of new dynamics in technology, systems, and school administration. Our mission-based organization was the first to develop a thesis of educationās future based on tech and cultural evolution ā and start helping schools advance systematically with live field events and the direct work of the Learning Counsel Innovation Services division on things like the Flex Learning Logistics Project.
Things we do in addition to field media meetings with educators:
Learning Counsel Website
Independent editorials. Edtech news.
National Surveys
Frequent national surveys help Learning Counsel present important context to trends and issues in education.
LeiLani Cauthen, Publisher, Education Futurist, Author and Software Developer hosts regular recorded shows with distribution to millions of followers.
Who is the Learning Counsel? contād.
Special Reports & Whitepapers
Informed from research, each piece brings forward reliable sources, reasoning, and new knowledge for educators.
Knowstory
Educationās AI Calendaring Ecosystem with featured edtech products, bookmarking, AI master schedules and more.
Consulting
Above and beyond help for schools in transformation and edtech models.
The Omni-AI Alliance envisions AI-asInfrastructureāa foundational layer that securely orchestrates data, learning intelligence, and multiple forms of artificial intelligence to transform schooling.
Details of the day
2026: AI Fluency vs. Literacy & the CRAFT Curriculum Trend
Learning Counsel News Media will be onsite to record local leaders sharing good news and providing an incredible day of learning from our national researchāespecially in AI and Human Intelligence.
In todayās rapidly shifting educational landscape, schools face eroding trust, instability, and mounting pressure to deliver meaningful outcomes. At the same time, communities are seeking ways to reclaim connection, purpose, and agency. The emerging CRAFT curriculumāCreate, Rig, Apply, Fuse, Thriveāoffers a human-first, locally grounded approach to learning, fostering practical problem-solving, entrepreneurial skills, and pathways to independent livelihoods. Find out about crafting your own CRAFT curriculum offering.
The day will also introduce next-level OmniAI schooling, which integrates multiple AI systems with existing operations, allowing schools to move beyond incremental technology adoption to a paradigm shift in teaching, learning, and decision-making. This is digital fluency, not mere literacyāthe ability for students, educators, and administrators to operate seamlessly within an intelligent, interconnected ecosystem where AI enhances personalization, efficiency, and insight.
Agenda (subject to change in each city)
8:00-8:30 am ā Welcome & Introductions
- Handouts for Workshops
8:30-10:00 am ā Workshops
ā¢ Intro to CRAFT curriculum
ā¢ Omni-AI & Digital Fluency
ā¢ Being Human: 5 Characteristics Machines Canāt Do
10:00-10:10 am ā Break
10:10-10:40 am ā Learning Counsel
Research Briefing - The Trends in Perspective
10:40-11:00 am ā Guest Speaker āInnovations & Challenges
11:00-11:30 am ā New Edtech Showcase
11:30-12:00 pm ā Lunch (Video Showcase at 11:50 am)
12:00-12:30 pm ā Guest Speaker ā Our AI Journey
12:30-1:00 pm ā Intro to Time AI
1:00-1:30 pm ā AI Problem Solving Breakouts
1:30-2:00 pm ā Panel Discussion ā Pride of Place, Human Branding, Practical AI Takeaways
Co-Produced with:
Our Research Briefing
Learning Counselās surveys are major national research. Analysis of trends through mathematical modeling is second to none.
Every year, Learning Counsel conducts major surveys on trends and spending in K12. Different questions and new analysis each year against secondary research provide a top-line view for school and district leaders to understand how their own institutions fit within the national landscape.
What sorts of data is shared?
Top-line trends such as total K12 spend in edtech, which categories are projected to see the most spending, which are losing, and top issues like the teacher shortage, absenteeism rates, growth of homeschooling, States passing choice legislation for vouchers, and other major law changes.
Many surveys also ask about pressures and awareness of new arenas of interest, these are just a couple of them:
Highest Pressures ā % by Administrators vs. Teachers
Predicted Student Enrollment Shift by Category Totals
Which types of AI are you familiar with?
Teachersā #1 Best Priority (top three by percentage)
64% cite Stop Lecturing ā Use Other Methods
63% cite Student Discipline Solutions
60% cite Pre-Created Full Courses Teachers Can Tweak (so they donāt have to build all their own lessons)
What help we need from you
Will you be our host?
We need a local school, district or local education authority champion to ensure we have a facility to arrive at and good attendance. Learning Counsel tours with a minimum number of staff and manages promotion, registration, catering, and printing for every media meeting as inexpensively as possible so that we can afford to do the tour with only a handful of sponsors and no cost to your institution. Sponsors want to contribute and meet educators in person, sometimes traveling great distances to do so. The cost to just attend for them is considerable, so we keep sponsor fees low and are choosy about which companies we allow. Almost universally the sponsor representatives sent are former educators themselves. Some bring literature, help host workshop discussions, speak for ten minutes, sponsor the agenda or meal, or give us a 2-minute video to show during lunch.
The help we need:
These helpful contributions by you and your organization as host:
Free facility use, if possible. We need one good-sized classroom to hold 20-45 people. With the busy schedules of educators, registration per city is normally 60 or less, and frequently we get only a fraction actually arriving due to whatever called their attention away that day. School leaders face many emergencies, as our research clearly indicates. We try to reconfirm registrants prior to the day to make sure we donāt overspend on ordering catering.
Someone there to let us set up by 7:30 a.m.
Help with clean-up afterward since we normally have to run right after the event to get to airports to catch flights out.
Help with contacting peers in your own and other schools and districts. This is usually a huge help to make sure we reach a good registration number to make the day of free professional development pay worthwhile for Learning Counsel to produce.
Help with local speakers and panelists that are administrators.
Safe sender our email address for outbound invitations through your networking technicians. This is the invitation email address we use: counselmail@lcnewsletter.org
What happens after:
During our Spring and Fall tours, Learning Counsel rushes to get our video footage and photos and āWhat Happened?ā editorials completed as soon as possible to go out nationally. Once our editors receive everything, they are quick to get it out in our newsletter and multiple social postings. Sometimes with back-to-back events this can still be a couple of weeks.
All registrants receive the registration contact information for everyone else so that there can be continued camaraderie between all educators in the area who would have gotten to know each other during the day.
What educators say about these meetings
āThank you very much for inviting and including me yesterday. I found the day to be a great use of my time and look forward to more work together in the future.ā
āAttending a Learning Counsel event is a good opportunity to create or stretch a vision, is a good opportunity to develop strategies to implement a 1:1 initiative, is a good opportunity to learn about resources and is a good opportunity to network with vendors. It becomes a great opportunity when school districts come in teams because in addition to the information present, your team spends the day collaborating and idea sharing which truly develops a shared responsibility of creating a digitally enhanced educational environment that improves instruction and learning.ā
āEric Godfrey, Superintendent Buckeye Union High School District, Phoenix, AZ
āIt was a really good day for getting people together that work in the tech industry, having Superintendents come together, and really delving into the data thatās really important to understand (for) not only the trends happening, but what are the motivating factors behind those. Itās a really good place to build community and begin the conversations about where people have been successful.ā
Brian Gatens, Superintendent, Emerson School District,NJ
āThereās always a forward look as to where this could be going. LeiLaniās got a wonderful vision about where things could take us, and so just hearing that is inspiration; there are nuggets I can take back to my own district that we pull out of that to build into our own system and architecture.ā
Superintendent Greg Magnuson, Buena Park School District, CA
āMy favorite thing today has been the openness to talk about some of these things that people donāt want to talk about. The fact that education is changing in such a rapid wayā¦whether it is the pandemic that forced that change and people are trying to put the genie back in the bottle, or the fact that itās just human evolution. The fact that it is changing, and people are out there talking about it and saying, āHey thereās a better way to do this, and we can move forward in a better light,ā itās refreshing to see that.ā
Chad Greene, Director ā Technology Operations, Klein ISD (TX)
āThere was a time during my thirty-one years that I think the stars aligned for us and Iāve been listening to Leilani preach at us for the last few years saying things like āWill we let human teachers be human? Will there ever be a day when human teachers are used precisely and fortuitously only for their human qualities? Never leave any student behind but work like maestros of direct instruction?ā When youāre in the trenches you donāt ever get to tell the story, but human relationships are the number one piece.ā
Chris Knutsen, Superintendent, Florence Unified School District (AZ)
Dr. Michael Robert, Superintendent, Osborn School District #8 (AZ)
Phoenix, AZ
Prior speakers and panelists
Michael Neu, CTE Director, Buckeye Union High School District
Dr. Leslie Standerfer, Assistant Superintendent of Academics, Buckeye Union High SD
Jason Stuewe, Assistant Superintendent of Student Achievement, Buckeye Union High School District
San Diego, CA
Dr. Stacey Perez, Principal, Temecula International Academy
Terri Novacek, Executive Director, Element Education
Dr. David Miyashiro, Superintendent, Cajon Valley Union School District
Dr. Benjamin Churchill, Superintendent, Carlsbad Unified School District
San Antonio, TX
Dr. Roberto Basurto, Assistant Superintendent of Academic Services, Edgewood ISD
David Valverde, Principal, RMA Public Schools Midland
Amy Reasons-Copes, Principal - Regency Place Elementary, North East ISD
Becky Landa, Senior Executive Director Educational Technology & Extended Learning, San Antonio ISD
Houston, TX
Dr. Jenny McGown, Superintendent, Klein Independent School District
Chad Greene, Director - Technology Operations, Klein Independent School District Nashville, TN
Tavis Massey, Principal - Northeast High School, Clarksville-Montgomery County School System
Michelle James Dircksen, Director of Technology, Humphreys County School System
Dr. Robyn Beard, Principal - Alex Green Design Technology Magnet, Metro Nashville Public Schools
Michelle James Dircksen, Director of Technology, Humphreys County School System Atlanta, GA
Lisa Watkins, Executive Director of Instructional Technology & Innovation, Gwinnett County Public Schools
Bay Area
Cheryl Jordan, Superintendent, Milpitas Unified School District
Benjamin Fobert, Director of Educational Services, Lammersville Unified School District
Crystal CastaƱeda, Superintendent, Byron Union School District
Baltimore, MD
Dr. Joseph Jones, Superintendent, New Castle County Vocational-Technical School District (DE)
Dr. Joseph Bostic Jr., Assistant PrincipalNorthwood High School, Montgomery County Public Schools (MD)
Jim Corns, Executive Director, Baltimore County Public Schools (MD) Philadelphia, PA
Dr. Kelly Murray, Assistant Superintendent of Teaching, Learning, and Innovation, Spring-Ford Area School District
Adam McGraw, Director of Instructional Technology, Conestoga Valley School District
Dr. James Pedersen, Superintendent, Essex County Schools of Technology
Kansas City, MO
Scott Jones, Chief Technology Officer, Kansas City Public Schools (MO)
Dr. Ivy Nelson, Instructional Technology Manager, Belton School District #124
Dr. Judith Campbell, Deputy Superintendent, Kansas City Kansas Public Schools (KS) Dallas, TX
Carmen Blakey, Director of CTE, Garland ISD
Brandy Schneider, Principal, Gilbreath Reed Career and Technical Center, Garland Independent School District
