Blog

The two-day virtual Strategic School Staffing Summit 2025, hosted by ASU’s Next Education Workforce™ and now in its sixth year, had nearly 500 registrants and featured more than 100 presenters.

Dr. Joseph Sirven, the Chairman Emeritus of the Department of Neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona, is Arizona State University’s Strategic School Staffing Summit 2025 keynote speaker.

The Next Education Workforce™ is the strategic school staffing initiative of Arizona State University’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, which, as of Jan. 13, 2025, will be known as the Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning Innovation. 

In this Q&A, Nick Carson, the assistant director of regional implementation support for the Next Education Workforce™, answers questions about the initiative’s Leader Launchpad workshop, including why it was created, what changes have been made to the offering and what he’s most excited about.

In the 2024-25 school year, 143 schools across 17 states embraced innovative Next Education Workforce™ models, a transformative step to improve outcomes for learners and educators through team-based strategic school staffing.

Nearly 70 educators and school and system leaders attended the Next Education Workforce™ initiative’s November Site Visit, joining a growing number of out-of-state, and even out-of-country, educational innovators coming to Arizona to see team-based strategic school staffing models in action. And the reason they can come see these models in action can be attributed largely to the Mesa Public Schools district that decided to take a big step forward in transforming how it supports its students and educators.