PRE-CONFERENCE

June 16, 2026 (10:00am - 5:00pm)

Focused on helping you navigate the important issues in our world and in our schools, this in-depth day of learning features workshops that take a deep dive into a specific topic.

Pre-conference ticket sold separately.

Pricing Details

Five Tracks

Choose from five specialized tracks designed to equip you with practical knowledge and deeper insight for your role.

1 Generosity in School Development 2 Governing for the Future: Generative Boards 3 The Good Teacher: Upper School 4 Raising Sturdy Kids 5 Beginning with the End in Mind: Lower School

Track 1

Building a Development Program Rooted in Generosity: Understanding Stewardship, Donors, and the Essentials of School Fundraising

Designed to bridge theological conviction with operational clarity, this pre-conference track will equip school leaders to understand the donor mindset, practice Christian stewardship in fundraising, and build (or strengthen) a sustainable development program from the ground up. We invite heads of school, board members, development professionals, and anyone responsible for advancement within a classical Christian school to join us for this full day of practical, hands-on training.

Anchored in this year's conference theme—Overflowing Generosity: Embracing God's Abundance—participants will learn how generosity shapes the way donors give, how schools can cultivate long-term philanthropic partnerships, and how to design systems that support annual giving, major gifts, and potential campaigns. With guidance from national experts at The Focus Group and trusted Christian leaders, attendees will walk away with practical tools and a clearer framework for funding their mission with confidence and integrity.

Speakers

Bill Wichterman

Senior Advisor

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Jason Smith

Senior Consultant

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Eric Cook

President and CEO

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Genevieve Peterson

Chief Development Officer

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Track 2

Governing for the Future: Foundations & Practices of Generative Boards

How boards move beyond oversight to shape vision, ask better questions, and steward long-term flourishing.

This pre-conference track equips both new and experienced board members to move beyond simply avoiding operational involvement toward embracing the deeper work of generative, mission-focused governance. Drawing on insights from SCL's accreditation work, which reveal that many boards successfully disengage from operations but then stall without a clear vision for leading the school into the future, this track provides both foundational clarity and advanced leadership tools to develop your board into one that actively shapes vision, strategy, and culture by partnering with leadership to ask formative questions, generate insight, and guide mission-aligned growth.

Matt Skinner will open the day with a Boards 101 session that establishes the essential roles, responsibilities, and healthy practices of effective governance. Building on that foundation, Erik Twist will guide participants into the principles of generative leadership, helping boards learn to ask better questions, anticipate future challenges, and steward the long-term flourishing of their schools.

Speakers

Erik Twist

Principal Partner & President

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Matt Skinner

President Emeritus & Lead Coach

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Track 3

The Good Teacher in Action: Live Teaching Demonstrations and Discussion

Sponsored by Classical Academic Press/ClassicalU, The Good Teacher in Action: Live Teaching Demonstrations and Discussion brings classical pedagogy to life through real classroom practice. This Upper School focused track features experienced teachers working with live students recruited from local classical schools, offering two live teaching demonstrations at each level (middle and high school), culminating in the live demonstration of a Socratic seminar. Each demonstration will be followed by a guided talk-back and Q&A session, allowing attendees to reflect on what they observed and engage directly with the teacher about instructional choices, student responses, and pedagogical aims. Grounded in classical educational principles, including those articulated in The Good Teacher, this track will provide participants with a rare opportunity to see excellent classical teaching in action and to thoughtfully discuss how these principles can be embodied in diverse classroom contexts.

Speakers

Christopher Perrin

Educator and Publisher

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Brian Williams

Dean of the Templeton Honors College

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Track 4

Raising Sturdy Kids

The Raising Sturdy Kids pre-conference track will provide valuable insight into current cultural and psychological dynamics that impact our students, their families, and our ability to engage them. We will also consider the many ways that both culture and psychology distort and even prevent the raising of young men and women of virtue prepared to live a flourishing life, and how to counteract these pressures in our schools, communities, and homes.

Topics to be covered:
• Where are we and how did we get here – current condition of children and parents
• Understanding of the "Therapeutic Mindset" and how it has undermined the raising of our children
• Review of healthy child development
• Conflict resolution and applying E-T-K process to frustrated students and complaining parents
• Development of a Consumer to Contributor mindset both in your families and school communities and other "Live Sturdy School Basics"
• And many more…

Speaker

Keith McCurdy

Family and Parenting Educator and Consultant

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Track 5

Beginning with the End in Mind: How the Portrait of a Graduate Begins in Lower School

Just as a healthy and vibrant tree begins with growing deep roots, so too a healthy and vibrant graduate begins in Lower School. When we see Upper School students who love learning, deliver and defend a thesis with grace and poise, or see struggle as an opportunity to grow, we tend to congratulate the Upper School faculty. But, those are the fruits of careful work that began in the Lower School to establish the right habits and feed their appetite for truth, goodness, and beauty.

Topics to be explored in this track will include: habits, forming affections, healthy struggle, and embodying rhetoric across disciplines.