Pre-Con Day - NCCE 27

Kick off NCCE 27 with a day of immersive learning! Explore full-day and half-day summits, intensive workshops, and hands-on experiences designed for educators, leaders, coaches, and innovators. Best of all, everything is included with your pre-con day registration.

Space is limited - register early for Summits and Workshop in order to secure your seat!

All pre-con day experiences are included with your registration. However, capacity is limited for each offering, and your seat is not guaranteed until you have reserved your preferred selection.

AI is changing classrooms faster than best practices can keep up. Rather than offering easy answers, this interactive half-day summit brings educators together to tackle the questions that matter most. Through collaborative Solutions Labs, participants will explore real challenges related to curriculum design, assessment, teacher workload, and cognitive development in an age of AI. Attendees will evaluate emerging practices, share what is working in their own contexts, and co-create practical strategies that can be implemented immediately. Leave with new ideas, fresh perspectives, and actionable solutions shaped by educators, for educators.

Katie Bosch-Wilson is the Computer Science and Emerging Technologies Coordinator for the Idaho Department of Education, where she leads statewide efforts in artificial intelligence, computer science, digital literacy, and educational technology. With more than 15 years of experience in education, including roles as a classroom teacher, district leader, and state level leadership, Katie is passionate about supporting educators and expanding opportunities for students. She holds master's degrees in Curriculum and Instruction and Mathematics Education and enjoys spending time with her family and the outdoors.

Debbie Stewart is the Educational Technology Coordinator at NEWESD 101 in Spokane, WA, where she supports school districts across northeast Washington with effective instructional technology. She brings over a decade of experience in education as a 9–12 ELA teacher, K–2 librarian, and instructional coach. Her work draws on Universal Design for Learning to shape classroom instruction and professional learning. She approaches AI literacy through media literacy, helping teachers and students build the critical thinking skills to navigate an information-rich world.

Courtney Bock is a passionate K-5 Library and Technology teacher and district AI Implementation Specialist with a background in AI, dedicated to integrating innovative technologies into education. With over 16 years of teaching experience, she holds a Master's degree in Gifted and Talented Education and is a National Board Certified Educator. She is committed to empowering educators through AI-driven tools and creative teaching strategies. Her expertise lies in designing engaging, tech-forward learning experiences that inspire both students and fellow educators. Actively involved in professional development, she helps teachers discover how AI can transform classrooms and enhance learning outcomes.

Caitlin Byers is the Director of the Frontier Learning Lab at Montana Digital Academy, where she leads the lab in statewide efforts to help educators navigate and apply emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and immersive learning. Her career has always centered on designing environments where learning and connection can thrive—beginning in early childhood, where she guided place-based, nature-driven experiences; continuing through a decade in international online education, where she helped students and families build meaningful relationships across distance; and growing into teacher leadership, where she mentored colleagues and shaped academic programs. At MTDA, she expanded this work through student support and content development, creating resources and frameworks that empower educators and learners across Montana. Now, as Director of the Frontier Learning Lab, she carries forward that same throughline—human-centered design for learning—by building a statewide hub where innovation and practicality meet to strengthen classrooms and communities.

Join us for a high-energy half-day of connection, inspiration, and practical learning designed specifically for CTE educators!

Regardless of your CTE field, this summit is for you. The experience will be intentionally designed to support the full spectrum of CTE programs, from automotive, manufacturing, welding, construction, engineering, culinary arts, and other hands-on lab and shop environments to health sciences, business, marketing, digital media, computer science, and beyond.

Throughout the Summit, you’ll explore practical strategies, fresh ideas, and resources you can bring back and use immediately, while discovering best practices and learning alongside CTE peers from across the Northwest. Together, we’ll explore ways to make CTE learning more engaging, relevant, student-centered, and MAGICAL, while celebrating the unique power of career-connected learning.

Come ready to connect, create, collaborate, and be inspired, and leave with new ideas, valuable connections, and practical strategies you can put into action in your classroom, lab, or shop right away.

Ben Garcia, M.Ed., is an educator and community builder passionate about student engagement and accessible STEM education. His career spans international teaching in Mexico and China, educational leadership as Education Manager at Southern Oregon PBS, and student advising for PCC’s High School Equivalency Program (HEP).For the past three years as the STEAM Coordinator at Portland Community College’s Rock Creek Campus, Ben manages the Rock Creek campus makerspace within PCC STEAM Centers. He leads hands-on workshops and open lab mentoring in 2D/3D software (Adobe and Autodesk), 3D printing, laser engraving, vinyl cutting, and basic electronics. Ben supports PCC Early College H.S. and undergraduate students, helping them turn creative projects into foundational skills that connect to PCC’s STEM courses and degree programs.

Tisha Richmond is a high school Culinary Arts teacher, author, podcast host, and Canva Specialist from Southern Oregon with 30 years of experience in Career & Technical Education. Her career has spanned both the classroom and district-level leadership as a Tech Integration Specialist, giving her a unique perspective on the power of creativity, innovation, and meaningful learning. She is passionate about helping educators create joyful, playful, and engaging experiences that spark curiosity and empower every learner.

She is the author of Make Learning MAGICAL and The Magical CTE Classroom, co-author of the EduProtocol Companion Guide, and co-author of the children’s book Dragon Smart, written with her son, Tommy. Across her classroom, books, podcast, and professional learning, Tisha inspires educators to reimagine learning through joy, creativity, gamification, and meaningful student experiences.

Tisha’s work has been recognized with the Medford School District Golden Pear Secondary Teacher Award and the Henry Ford Innovation Nation Educator Award, where she was named the national first-place winner in 2018.

At the heart of Tisha’s work is a simple belief: learning should be more than something students do; it should be something they experience, remember, and carry with them. Her mission is to help educators create joyful, inclusive, and unforgettable learning experiences that empower every student to thrive and discover the magic in learning.

Ready to take your Canva game to the next level? Join us for a high-energy, hands-on experience designed to help you level up what you and your students can do with Canva. Move beyond pretty projects and discover new ways to spark creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, communication, and real-world problem-solving. You’ll explore powerful Canva tools, experiment with AI and interactive experiences, and transform an existing lesson or project into something more engaging, authentic, and future-ready.

Your mission? Level up your teaching. Level up your students. Level up what’s possible.

Every major cyber incident starts with a series of decisions. Some are technical. Most are not.

Join WSIPC CISO April Mardock or an interactive half-day cybersecurity summit designed specifically for K-12 executives, technology leaders, and district decision-makers. Drawing from real-world incident response engagements, ransomware case studies, and interviews with leaders from twenty-four school districts that experienced ransomware incidents, this hands-on experience explores how cyberattacks actually begin, why preventable risks remain unaddressed, and what leaders can do before becoming the next headline.

Through a blend of interactive scenarios, real-world case studies, and collaborative exercises, participants will examine how cyber incidents unfold, how leaders and technical teams can work together during a crisis, and how seemingly routine decisions can significantly impact organizational risk. The summit emphasizes practical strategies for cyber resilience, effective incident response, and continuous improvement rather than fear-based messaging.

Attendees will leave with actionable strategies, executive discussion tools, and a clearer understanding of how leadership decisions influence security outcomes long before an attacker ever enters the network.

Session Structure

The Three Doors: What Ransomed Districts Taught Us A leadership-focused look at recurring attack patterns from real K-12 ransomware incidents.

Executive Cyber Crisis Simulation Participants assume leadership roles and respond to a rapidly evolving cyber crisis involving operations, communications, legal considerations, and recovery decisions. (AI assisted interactive gameplay)

From Compromised Account to Incident Response A walkthrough of an administrator account compromise using incident response checklists and decision frameworks adapted from K12 SIX guidance (similar approach but more involved than https://k12six.org/compromise )

Backdoors & Breaches: K-12 Edition Teams work through realistic attack scenarios, learning about various cybersecurity tools and resources as they defend their virtual school district from a determined attacker.

Lessons Learned and Next Steps Building a 6 month cybersecurity action plan via a 14 question assessment from K12SIX that transforms concern into measurable risk reduction strategies. https://k12six.org/assess

April Mardock is the CISO for WSIPC (Washington Schools Information Processing Cooperative), where she supports cybersecurity across more than 750,000 users and hundreds of k12 organizations. Featured in Tribe of Hackers Blue Team, she holds a Master's in IT, a CISSP, a CCRE, and is known for cutting through the technical noise to deliver practical, actionable security guidance — from the boardroom to the lunchroom. With decades of K12 cybersecurity experience, she has contributed to several national K12 SIX resources including a cybersecurity self-assessment (k12six.org/assess) and an incident response plan (k12six.org/IR).

Learning is fundamentally a human, biological process and understanding that process is the key to designing instruction that truly sticks. This full-day summit grounds educators in the neuroscience of learning, then applies that science to a fast-changing instructional landscape. In the morning, we explore how neuroplasticity, productive struggle, and intentional instructional design physically shape the brain, giving participants practical structures for challenging and supporting every learner. In the afternoon, we turn that same brain science toward rapidly emerging technologies, including AI, examining which instructional practices deepen thinking and which quietly erode it. Participants leave with a coherent, science-backed framework for designing learning experiences that keep the human brain at the center of the classroom, no matter what tool comes next.

Join teacher-librarians from across the Northwest for a full-day library summit at NCCE 2027. We will take our bearings together, sharing and examining how school libraries are navigating shifting expectations and attitudes. How do we stop chasing the wake of educational trends and take a more active role in steering the ship?

We will venture into waters that may challenge our assumptions about best practice, creating a respectful space to surface beliefs, questions, and concerns, reconsider long-held approaches, and either adjust our course or recommit to practices that continue to serve our students and school communities well.

How do we help school library stakeholders, including administrators, educators, students, and families, better understand the role of the school library and teacher-librarian in the educational journey?

It’s all hands on deck in Tacoma as together we chart a course for the school library of the future. As we look toward the horizon, we see red skies at night and signs that the winds may be shifting in our favor—a hopeful moment to chart a strong course for the future of school libraries.

Sarah Logan is the Teacher-Librarian at Skyridge Middle School in Camas, Washington. She was the Washington Library Association School Library Division’s Elementary Teacher-Librarian of the Year award for 2024 and the 2024 WLA Board President. She is also the recipient of an AASL Toor Scholarship for Strong Public School Libraries this year.

A passionate advocate for access to quality school library programs, Sarah is instrumental in the #K12Librarians4AllWA campaign, which seeks to increase the number of Teacher-Librarians in Washington’s K-12 public schools. She also helped found OLLI, the Olympic Library Leadership Incubator, a leadership training program for Teacher-Librarians in Washington state.

Sarah was the Teacher-Librarian at Dorothy Fox Elementary in Camas from 2015-2024. Prior to that, she was the Teacher-Librarian at Lynbrook High School in San Jose. She earned her MLIS from San Jose State University’s iSchool in 2012.

Rachel Peters is the Library Information Specialist at Hutton Elementary in Spokane, Washington. A dedicated educator and library advocate, Rachel was named the 2025 Librarian of the Year by the Northwest Council for Computer Education (NCCE), is a past recipient of the Fred Gilbert Award for Excellence in Teaching and is the incoming Chair of the Washington Library Association’s School Library Division.

With a career spanning over two decades in both public and private education, Rachel has served as a classroom teacher, English instructor, and university adjunct professor. She brings a dynamic approach to digital citizenship and media literacy, actively contributing to the OSPI Media Literacy/Digital Citizenship Ambassadors program and the Olympic Library Leadership Incubator (OLLI). She is also a current Educator Fellow with the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, where she collaborates with educators to promote media literacy and combat online misinformation in K–12 education.

As a lead Facilitator-in-Training with Code.org, Rachel supports the implementation of computer science fundamentals across Washington state. She holds National Board Certification as a Library Media Specialist and earned her School Library Professional certification from the University of Washington iSchool.

Her innovative teaching has been recognized with multiple grants and honors, including awards from the Spokane Public Schools Foundation, the Northeast Washington Education Council, the Fulbright Memorial Fund in Japan, and the Earthwatch Fellowship in Vietnam.

A passionate champion for student access to cutting-edge tools and inquiry-based learning, Rachel continues to explore the intersections of technology, media literacy, and global education to inspire the next generation of thinkers.