Every year we pick a conference theme by asking one question: what is the conversation high school leaders actually need to have with each other right now? This year the answer was not close. On October 25–27, at the Embassy Suites in Sacramento, the California High School Coalition State Conference takes on High Schools in the Age of AI.
This is not a technology conference
I want to be clear about that up front. We are not gathering to watch product demos. We are gathering because AI has stopped being a future-tense topic for the people who run California's high schools. It shows up in classrooms whether or not a district has a policy for it. It shows up in hiring conversations, in board questions, in how students do their work and how teachers check it. Superintendents, principals, and cabinet-level leaders are being asked to make calls on something that changes faster than any adoption cycle we have managed before.
That is exactly the kind of moment this Coalition exists for. When the ground moves, the most valuable thing available to a leader is a room full of people who hold the same job, face the same pressures, and will say plainly what is working and what is not.
How the three days run
The format is the same one our members tell us they value: short on podium time, long on working conversation.
- Sunday, October 25 — Welcome session at 4:00 pm, with a reception and dinner to follow.
- Monday, October 26 — General session at 8:00 am, then small groups from 9:30 am to 3:30 pm (breakfast and lunch provided), and dinner at 5:30 pm.
- Tuesday, October 27 — Small groups from 9:00 to 11:00 am; the conference concludes at 12:00 noon.
The small groups are where the real work happens. Leaders sit with their counterparts — superintendents with superintendents, instructional leaders with instructional leaders — and get past the headlines into the practical questions: what belongs in policy, what belongs in practice, and what deserves a wait-and-see.
Who should be in the room
If you lead a California high school or the district behind one — as a superintendent, an instructional leader, an HR leader, a chief business official, or a principal — this conference is built for you. You will leave with a clearer read on the AI decisions ahead and a bench of colleagues you can call when the next one lands on your desk.
Registration is open now on Whova, and details will keep coming through the fall. I hope to see you in Sacramento.
— Ron Carruth, Executive Director, California High School Coalition