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COSB Leadership Institute 2026
Building Capacity
From the students we prepare to the teachers we grow and the systems we lead, this year’s Institute is about building our ecosystem’s capacity so that every learner who is blind and has low-vision is served by strong people, sound data, and sustainable practice.
7:30 – 9:00 am Registration
Grab your name tag, pick up your Starbucks gift card, and enjoy breakfast while you reconnect with colleagues. Thanks to our sponsor, AER, for helping us start the day well.
Session 1 | Building Capacity: Student Readiness and Leadership Growth
| 9:00 – 9:15 am | Welcome and Meet New Members |
COSB Executive Director Joy Harris opens the Institute with a warm welcome and introduces our newest members. If it’s your first year, prepare to be embraced by the encouragement of our community.
| 9:15 – 9:45 am | Leading the Way: Guiding Students to College Success |
Speaker: Heather Miller | Director of Education & Training
World Services for the Blind
Preparing students for success after high school is an ongoing concern for anyone, regardless of disability status, but a lack of higher education leads to low employment rates and lost opportunities. How do we make sure our blind and low visually students are ready for the rigors of college and can access all the tools they need? WSB has been asking those questions to build a college preparation program tailored to students who are blind or have low vision, drawing on conversations with college disability services offices and recent graduates. Learn what they’ve gathered and how to incorporate it into the services you provide to college-bound students.
| 9:45 – 10:15 am | Roundtable Discussion 1 |
Facilitated by Joy Harris | COSB Executive Director
During this discussion, participants select a table organized around the practical realities of running a school or agency. Topics range from tackling your biggest operational challenges to preparing students for a technology-driven future, including building computer literacy. Each table offers a chance to trade strategies, surface common obstacles, and learn how peers are solving the day-to-day problems of school leadership. Come ready to share what’s working, ask about what isn’t, and leave with concrete ideas you can bring back to your building.
| 10:15 – 10:45 am | Roundtable Discussion 2 |
Facilitated by Joy Harris | COSB Executive Director
The second roundtable shifts focus from running your school or agency to strengthening yourself as a leader. Participants choose a table based on the leadership skills they most want to develop, e.g. managing and engaging your board, selecting tools to track progress against your strategic plan, and other core competencies of effective leadership. These conversations are designed to help you sharpen your own practice, learn from the approaches of fellow leaders, and walk away with actionable tools and habits to advance your growth.
| 10:45 – 11:00 am | Break |
Take a moment to connect with colleagues, engage with our sponsors, and refresh for the sessions ahead. Sponsored by CViConnect
Session 2 | Building Capacity in Families and Teachers
| 11:00 – 11:30 am | 4to24 in Practice: A Tool for Empowering Parents and Students |
Speaker: Stephanie Welch-Grenier | Training and Outreach Coordinator
National Research and Training Center on Blindness and Low Vision (NRTC)
This session highlights the 4to24 app, a free mobile resource for parents of children and youth ages 4 to 24 who are blind, have low vision, or are deafblind with additional disabilities. As an innovative tool for family engagement, the session focuses on how practitioners can use the app to support and empower parents, students, and families—connecting them with practical information, activities, and resources on independence, employment preparation, transition, advocacy, and long-term success.
| 11:30 – 12:00 pm | Advancing Expanded Core Instruction with Competency-Based Learning and Asset-Based Practices |
Speaker: Robbin Clark | Principal
Utah Schools for the Deaf and the Blind
This session demonstrates how competency-based learning (CBL), grounded in an asset-based approach, can transform Expanded Core instruction for students who are blind or have low vision in both itinerant and school-based settings. Participants will learn to personalize ECC instruction by focusing on clear competencies, leveraging student strengths, and providing flexible pathways to mastery across all ECC domains. The session highlights practical methods for mapping and tracking progress, facilitating student self-assessment, and using feedback cycles to drive growth.
| 12:00 – 1:00 pm | Enjoy the buffet lunch |
Connect with a colleague during lunch, and take a little time to invest in your own wellness.
Session 3 | Building the Workforce: Recruiting, Retaining, and Growing Talent
| 1:00 – 1:30 pm | Capacity Building at the Tennessee School for the Blind |
Speakers: Allen Huang | Director of Statewide Services and
Casey Sloan | TVI Instructional Coach
Tennessee School for the Blind
This session tells the story of TSB’s efforts to support staff with blind/low vision training. Many new hires arrive without a background in the field and without the natural, incidental TVI skills to effectively accommodate their instruction for blind and low vision students. TSB has taken the stance that we must meet teachers where they are—no matter the circumstances—to fill knowledge gaps and increase the quality of education our students receive. These efforts have culminated in a strategy for defining the “TSB Standard” for strong blind/low vision instruction.
| 1:30 – 2:00 pm | New Teacher Support: How to Attract, Retain, and Grow Your Newcomers |
Speaker: Kathy Nimmer | 2026 Helen Keller Achievement Award Winner
With shrinking teacher-prep pipelines and complex issues within the profession, finding, keeping, and nurturing new educators is harder than ever. Hear from a multi-decade blind teacher who created and directed an award-winning new teacher support program in Indiana as she shares concepts and practical strategies you can contemplate, modify, or use directly with your own staff. This session will prompt you to consider what you are already doing that—intentionally or unintentionally—helps staff stay or depart, and how you can shift your practice and environment for everyone’s benefit.
| 2:00 – 2:15 pm | Break |
Recharge, broaden your connections, or take a quiet moment before the closing sessions.
Session 4 | Building Leadership Capacity: Harnessing Data
| 2:15 – 2:45 pm | The Outreach Protocol: Engineering a Seamless Plan of Service |
Speakers: Belinda Fayard | Outreach Assistant Director and COSB Leadership Fellow and
Erica Cairns | Outreach Director
Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired
This session details a new, streamlined protocol for handling TSBVI Outreach requests for training, general questions, and technical assistance. Explore how the team redefined internal processes, updated engagement forms, and documented critical workflows. Attendees will see how these improvements ensure every request for support is met reliably while providing the robust documentation necessary to satisfy annual reporting requirements.
| 2:45 – 3:15 pm | From Data to Decisions: Using a National AT Capacity Needs Assessment to Drive Leadership Action |
Speaker: Lacey Long | Project Director and COSB Leadership Fellow
ND Dual Sensory Project
Schools and programs serving students who are blind or have low vision face increasing pressure to meet rapidly evolving assistive and access technology (AT) demands—often with limited staffing, funding, and training pipelines. This session shares findings from a national, IRB-approved needs assessment of AT service-delivery capacity conducted with administrators and program leaders. Drawing on survey data on staffing models, unmet technology needs, workforce gaps, and perceptions of the CATIS credential, it demonstrates how leaders can translate aggregated data into practical, defensible decisions—clarifying internal capacity gaps, strengthening advocacy with boards, funders, and policymakers, and informing innovative staffing and capacity-building models. The emphasis is on using data as a narrative tool that connects findings with the lived experiences of students, families, and staff to build momentum for change.
Session 5 | Celebrating Our Capacity Builders
| 3:15 – 4:00 pm | Celebrate POSB and COSB Award Winners |
We close by honoring the leaders and colleagues whose work builds capacity across our field. Join us in celebrating this year’s POSB and COSB award winners and the community that makes their work possible.