NSBA anticipates huge turnout in Chicago

This year’s conference, originally scheduled for New Orleans, was relocated to Chicago following Hurricane Katrina. Originally budgeted for 7,000 paid registrants, NSBA now expects the number to be closer to 8,000, says NSBA Assistant Executive Director for Conferences Robin Preston.

Associate Executive Director Susan Merry says that, with help from the Chicago Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Chicago hotel community has agreed to contribute more than $250,000 in NSBA’s name to a hurricane relief fund for New Orleans workers.

This year’s conference will include the usual array of marquee speakers, led by Gen. Colin L. Powell USA (Ret.), who will keynote Saturday’s kick-off General Session.

The other General Sessions will feature historian David McCullough, conservationist Jane Goodall, and fitness guru Richard Simmons.

There will be more than 250 conference workshops covering virtually every aspect of school governance. The conference also features an exhibition with more than 300 companies represented, a “Walk of Excellence” showcasing innovative school programs, a musical “Evening with Student Stars,” lunch­time concerts, and much more.

“At press time, more than 2,100 districts had registered school board members or administrators for the conference,” Preston says. “This will be our largest conference in the past four years and will far exceed last year’s final paid registration of 7,119.”

“The high turnout is especially gratifying in view of the fact that changing the location caused us to delay the opening of registration by six weeks,” says Merry. Due to the devastation caused by Katrina, no major conferences are being held in New Orleans until June of this year.

According to Merry, much of the credit for this year’s high turnout goes to Illinois school board members and administrators. More than 900 school leaders from Illinois have registered -- a new NSBA annual conference single-state record. Texas is in second place with more than 600 registrants, and Indiana is third with more than 400.

National Affiliate school boards account for nearly 70 percent of this year’s registrants, or more than 5,000 of current registrants. NSBA Assistant Executive Director Marilee Rist says National Affiliate districts are always the mainstay of NSBA’s Annual Conference attendance, representing between 65 percent and 70 percent of registrants each year.

Most conference sessions will be held at Chicago’s lakefront convention center, McCormick Place. Registrants will be housed at more than 50 hotels, most located in Chicago’s famed Loop or on Michigan Avenue’s “Magnificent Mile.”

A major conference event each year is the election and installation of new members of the NSBA Board of Directors. Board members are elected by NSBA’s Delegate Assembly, which is comprised of the leaders of the 47 state school boards associations and the school boards in Hawaii, the District of Columbia, and the Virgin Islands that are active members of NSBA.

NSBA’s current president-elect, E. Jane Gallucci, a school board member in Pinellas County, Fla., will succeed to the presidency of NSBA in Chicago.

For more information about the conference, visit www.nsba. org/conference. Conference events will be covered in special editions of School Boards News published daily during the conference. Most news reports will be available online, at www. nsba.org/ConfDaily.