Education executives from across Georgia arrived in Atlanta to attend a day of discussion and the shift in education. At 8:00am a packed room at the Cobb County Schoold District Administrative offices was welcomed by Dr. David Kafitz, the VP School Relations of the Learning Counsel with a simple message: we are here with information and solutions to help you in your transformation, don’t hold back with any questions and tackle us and the publishers and companies in the room to solve issues to make your work successful.

Beyond the many individual attendees, whole teams arrived from: Cobb County, Forsyth County, Fulton County and Gwinnett County. Leaders also attended from Georgia Dept of Education and the Alabama State Dept of Education.

Photo Gallery: Atlanta Discussion

It was clear by the half-way mark that discussions had opened up aspects of device implementation or digital curriculum initiatives which were “hot potatoes” and got more attention. Exercises with Legos helped to facilitate problem solving. The level of conversations resulted in attendees forming partnerships and consortiums to expand on the work and information so that students statewide benefit from the event.

A further highlight of the day was the panel discussion at the end with the Superintendent from Cobb County, Mr. Chris Ragsdale; Jay Heap, the Director of Virtual Learning of the Georgia Department of Education; Keith George, Education Specialist from the Alabama Department of Education and Tricia Kennedy, Executive Director of eCLASS Transformation of Gwinnett County Public Schools.

In a statement that truly summated the day, Mr. Mark Walls, the Executive Director of Information Systems and Solutions for Gwinnett County Schools stated, “The exercises showed us how complex our responsibilities are and it helped. David and Leilani bring leadership and information to the table that you can’t get other places—to give you the view outside your district and state. And that helps in making decisions and moving forward. You also see with the publishers and companies who attend that they are listening—they are trying to meet the needs of the K-12 industry.”

We look forward to seeing everyone in Atlanta again next year and hearing about your successes and outcomes as we make our way in this time of change.