It was incredible to see many of you at the NSBA 2023 Annual Conference and Exposition in Orlando in early April. Attending the conference and seeing school board members excited and energized through learning and networking always inspires me.

Artificial intelligence (AI) pioneer and inventor of the digital assistant Siri, Adam Cheyer wowed our audience with timely information about the wave of AI coming to classrooms. We believe Cheyer’s important message deserves a wider audience, so we are running an adaptation of his speech in this issue.

At conference, we honored the winners of the 2023 Magna Awards. We would love to see your innovative district program honored in 2024. Go to the Magna Awards site for information on how to nominate your program: https://nsba.org/ASBJ/Magna-Awards.

Also in this issue, you can see photos of many highlights of this year’s conference. Save the date for next year’s event in New Orleans, April 6 to 8, 2024.

Our cover story this month reflects NSBA’s continuing focus on rural issues, with Contributing Editor Glenn Cook’s article, “In Search of Teachers.” He looks at how school leaders in rural Colorado districts work to ease the teacher and staffing shortage in their communities.

For more on the rural teacher shortages, read NSBA’s new report, “Thinking Broadly and Deeply About Rural Student Achievement and Teacher Pipelines” (https://tinyurl.com/bdzabehz). The report is one among the Center for Public Education’s five-part series, “Educational Equity for Rural Students: Out of the Pandemic, but Still Out of the Loop.”

NSBA offers many in-person opportunities to connect with like-minded peers both in your region and across the nation. Engage on urban trends and critical issues at the Council of Urban Boards of Education (CUBE) Annual Conference, Sept. 14 to 16, in Chicago. For details and to register, visit our CUBE event webpage (https://nsba.org/Events/CUBE-2023-Annual-Conference).

Until next time. . .

ASBJ@nsba.org

Around NSBA

Six students conduct a science experiment with potatoes and electrodes.

2024 Magna Awards: Silver Award Winners

The 2024 Magna Awards program recognizes 15 exemplary district programs in three enrollment categories as Silver Award winners.