About 600 Dublin City Schools staff members gave up a summer day to teach each other on Aug. 11, gathering at Dublin Jerome High School for LEADublin, the district's annual teacher-led professional development conference.

With the Aug. 20 first day of school approaching, educators picked from more than 70 breakout sessions on artificial intelligence, mental health, special education, first aid and curriculum. Every session was taught by a fellow DCS staff member volunteering their expertise.

"Because this conference is developed by staff members, our educational community trusts the professionalism and wealth of knowledge of our fellow teachers," said Morgan Was, a math teacher at Davis Middle School and one of the conference organizers, in a district post published Aug. 13.

LEADublin is optional. The 600 who showed up represent a significant chunk of the roughly 17,000-student district's teaching force.

A keynote picked by the new superintendent

Dr. John Spencer, a former middle school teacher and associate professor of education at George Fox University in Oregon, delivered the keynote and led two additional breakout sessions. Spencer is the author of The A.I. Roadmap and spoke at the White House Future Ready Summit in 2014.

Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Schwanke, who took over Aug. 1 after nearly three decades in the district, personally invited Spencer after meeting him at the Wide Open Spaces conference in Bend, Oregon, earlier this year. On the Principal Matters podcast in March, Schwanke said she was impressed by Spencer's message and was "bringing him to my school district this August to talk with our teachers."

Built by teachers across all 25 buildings

A planning committee with representatives from every DCS building met three times during the 2025-26 school year to shape the program, drawing on feedback surveys from past attendees. Was said committee members also spent personal time on networking and preparation beyond those official sessions.

The format matters in a year of unusual transition. Dublin City Schools enters 2026-27 with a new superintendent, five new principals including leaders at both Jerome and Coffman high schools, and new attendance boundaries taking effect for incoming freshmen in 2027-28.

Was said she hopes attendees left feeling prepared for the year ahead. Preparations for LEADublin 2027 will begin in the coming months.