The superintendent isn't a budget manager, they're the chief advocate for all children. Dr. Michael J. Barnes rebuilt Mayfield City Schools around this principle, and the results speak for themselves.

The superintendent is the chief advocate for all children in their community. Nobody else can say that, not the mayor, not the school board, not the superintendent of the next district over. But somewhere along the way, superintendents drifted from the instructional chair into operations and politics. Dr. Michael J. Barnes reversed that drift entirely.

At Mayfield City Schools (Ohio), Barnes built a four-track personalized learning model that blew up the time/learning equation. Traditional, Cross-Curricular, Self-Paced, and The Option. When students got agency over their learning design, attendance skyrocketed, not because of better discipline policies, but because students were actually designing their own learning. Time stopped being the constant. Learning became it.

In this conversation with Dr. Conner, Barnes walks the AC-Stage reframe: what does instructional leadership look like when the industrial model is obsolete? What's the role of the superintendent in an Innovation Core? Why do design thinking, engineering, and entrepreneurship matter as much as math? How do you navigate the VUCA landscape of state politics without abandoning your moral imperative?

• The superintendent's real job: chief advocate for all children
• How to flip the time/learning variable, when learning is constant, time becomes flexible
• The four-track personalized learning model and why student agency drives attendance
• Why instructional leadership means staying in the learning chair, not the politics chair
• The Creative Staircase framework for systemic innovation
• How to navigate the VUCA landscape in state politics without compromising your vision

This conversation is essential for any superintendent or central office leader in the AC-Stage of education. Dr. Conner and Dr. Barnes dig into the frameworks that move the dial from excellence as an aspiration to excellence as a system.

And on that note, onward and upward.

What happens when a public school district builds a micro school inside itself, and doesn't apologize for it?

Rob Dickson is the CIO of Wichita Public Schools (USD 259), and he's not waiting for permission to innovate. Creative Minds, a K-6 vertical classroom where kindergartners learn alongside sixth graders. Future Ready Centers that look like businesses, not classrooms, where students earn certifications in advanced manufacturing and cybersecurity. An iterative, agile approach to systems change that treats failure as feedback, not failure.

Dickson's work bridges the operational and instructional sides of AI adoption, from changing app approval processes to training teachers on generative AI within weeks of ChatGPT's release. He argues that adaptability is the highest form of intelligence, and that schools must prepare students not for certainty, but for curiosity in the face of constant change.

What You'll Learn:

1. The three learning stages: K-5 learning by doing, 6-8 skill discovery, 9-12 skill development
2. Social fitness - how Generation Alpha navigates networks of billions, not 15
3. Why AI replaces tasks, not jobs - and what that means for curriculum design
4. How Wichita's Future Ready Centers and Creative Minds micro school operate
5. Arizona State's six levels of problem solving - and why academia lives in the first three
6. Humanity, Agency, Audacity: Rob's three words for being 2035-ready

What if AI isn't trying to fit into your classroom — but to rebuild it entirely?

Erin Mote, CEO and founder of InnovateEDU, explores what it means to navigate an arrival technology, one that doesn't fit into existing systems but fundamentally reorders them. Erin leads national and international work on AI literacy, including National AI Literacy Day (March 27th), and she's not here to hype or fear-monger. She's a scout: someone managing both the promise and the peril.

What You'll Learn:

1. The difference between arrival technologies (AI, electricity, internet) and adoption technologies (crypto, VR)
2. Why AI literacy is as critical in English and science as it is in computer science
3. Real examples of AI reducing bias, optimizing bus routes, and screening for dyslexia
4. How National AI Literacy Day (March 27) is calling in parents, students, and communities
5. Why "do something" is the only response that matters
6. Erin's two-word challenge: Do something
7. Her song choice: Happy (balancing promise and peril)