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Educators to gather at Fort Lewis College for conference on improving education

Improving the country’s educational system is a hotly debated topic nationwide and the focus of an upcoming conference hosted by Fort Lewis College. From June 3-6, 2013, FLC will host more than 600 educators at the “Growing Together Showcase: Building Systems of Support” conference. The conference is sponsored by the Colorado Department of Education, the Colorado Legacy Foundation, and the San Juan Board of Cooperative Educational Services.

“This year’s ‘Growing Together Showcase: Building Systems of Support’ will provide an opportunity for districts from across the state to build a network of support around implementation of standards, assessments, and evaluation,” Helayne Jones, president and CEO of the Colorado Legacy Foundation, said in a letter to the attendees. “Districts and schools will share successes, strategies, and lessons learned from early implementation efforts. District teams will receive hands on training and access to tools and learnings that will help them determine actionable next steps which they can incorporate into plans for next year.”

Opportunities like this conference are becoming more important to educational providers as the scrutiny and expectations of this country’s educational system increases. Proof of the increased focus can be found in legislative efforts passed and being considered across the nation, efforts like Colorado Senate Bill 10-191, which changes the way Colorado teachers and principals are evaluated.

Hosting this conference continues what is a big year for Fort Lewis College in regard to teacher education. In January, FLC announced the creation of its first graduate degree program ever, a Master of Arts in Education, Teacher Leadership Option. The new program, which will welcome its first class in the fall, is a historic milestone in the more than 100 years that the College has been teaching teachers.

For more information on the “Growing Together Showcase: Building Systems of Support” conference, visit http://colegacy.org. To learn more about FLC’s new Master of Arts in Education, visit http://graduate.fortlewis.edu/teacher-leadership