Summary
- Innovative Initiative: Discover California’s first Universal Design for Learning coalition, CAUDLeading the Way, aiming to revolutionize educational access and equity through conference planning.
- Behind the Scenes: Gain insights from Fred Cochran, the orchestrator behind the event, and learn how he successfully organized this groundbreaking conference.
- Event Success: Explore the staggering success of CAUDLeading the Way, with 217 attendees, 32 sessions, and an average session rating of 8.8, marking a triumphant introduction of UDL to California.
- Participant Satisfaction: Uncover the high levels of interest and approval from attendees, with over 77% expressing interest in future UDL conferences and praising the event’s organization.
- Awesome conference planning tools: Understand how Sched facilitated the event’s success through user-friendly scheduling, professional presentation, valuable analytics, accessible content, and exceptional support.
- Expert Advice: Benefit from bonus tips on promoting conference speakers, mastering in-person events, and utilizing Sched to ensure your conference’s success.
In a California conference planning first, CAUDLeading the Way, announced the premier Universal Design for Learning coalition in the state.
We spoke with the events orchestrator, Fred Cochran, to celebrate this success, and get some tips on how he went about it.
Dive in and get inspired!
Fred Cochran, the San Joaquin County Office of Education, and The Capital Central Foothill Area Consortium
Table of contents
Fred Cochran is a coordinator in a department called Continuous Improvement and Support. They provide technical assistance to school districts under the San Joaquin County Office of Education. It’s nestled in San Joaquin County.
San Joaquin County is home to 14 school districts housing 239 public school sites, including charter schools, and nearly 144,000 students.
The SJCOE provides a variety of services to support the students and educators of San Joaquin County. Collaborative efforts between the SJCOE and the 14 school districts ensure that students will receive the highest-quality education
As well as his duties at the SJCOE, Fred also spearheads a new Universal Design for Learning (UDL) initiative under a grant called the California Coalition for Inclusive Learning. This coalition is called the Capital Central Foothill Area Consortium.
- P.S. If UDL has grabbed your interest, you can discover more of the hottest professional development topics in 2024 here.
CAUDLeading the Way: a new kind of conference planning comes to California
CAUDLeading the Way: Inclusion – Access – Equity, is a call to action! It’s a “statement event” that announces the arrival of UDL to California.
This event is the launch of the Capital Central Foothill Area Consortium. Their goal is to remove barriers to learning and give everyone equal access to success. Their event is for teachers, administrators, and state education leaders.
It was comprehensive conference planning, bringing together keynotes, workshops, merch, lots of food, pre and post-hangouts, and more. The event was a huge success, as these key numbers will tell you:
- Attendees: 217
- Sessions: 32
- Volunteers: 25
- Sponsors: 13
- Average session rating: 8.8
- 77.4% (16.1%) Were interested in attending future UDL conferences in California.
- 77.4% (12.9%) Thought the event was well organized for a conference in terms of registration, scheduling, venue, and amenities.
In short, the summit did exactly what it intended. It launched the Capital Central Foothill Area Consortium (and UDL in California) with a bang!
This success wasn’t just measured in numbers, either. With personal accolades from the superintendent and many of the attendees, the qualitative feedback was strong too!
BONUS ADVICE – If you want to build a stacked conference too, learn how to promote your call for conference speakers to book some stars!
The conference planning Before Sched
Not only was this the first-ever edition of CAUDLeading the Way, but this was the first time that Fred has ever organized a conference! This makes the success of this first Californian UDL event even more impressive!
Fred first found Sched as an attendee. He liked his experience – particularly its user-friendliness – and decided that he would try it for himself.
If you’re ready and inspired by this story, then let us help you get started with your own conference planning. For starters, here’s our comprehensive guide to organizing education events.
How to Create an Event Schedule that Will WOW Your Attendees from Sched Support on Vimeo.
How did Sched help their conference planning?
As the numbers and the quotes show, the first CAUDLeading the Way summit was a huge success. Here’s how Sched helped Fred in his conference planning:
- UDL in action: Fred loved that the color coding of the schedule lent itself to the themes of the event, inclusion, access, and equity. Moreover, it was user-friendly in terms of building the schedule and for attendees to access and read it.
- BONUS ADVICE – learn how to keep attendees on top of your event schedule!
- Setting the tone for the new coalition: Sched offered a professional appearance for all presenters’ information.
- Analytics: As the reader saw from above, there was some handy data collected!
- Accessible content: They were able to upload files and embed live links within descriptions, ensuring all presenter information was both accessible and neatly organized.
- Great support team: Fred found the assistance from the Sched team to be invaluable. For example, assistance from a coordinator was pivotal in gathering all presentations into a single folder for shared access.
BONUS ADVICE – Take these amazing hacks for mastering in-person events to upgrade your conference planning.
The takeaways
- Innovative Initiative: California’s first Universal Design for Learning coalition, CAUDLeading the Way, revolutionizes educational access and equity.
- Behind the Scenes: Insights from Fred Cochran, the orchestrator behind the event.
- Event Success: 217 attendees, 32 sessions, and an average session rating of 8.8, marking a triumphant introduction of UDL to California.
- Participant Satisfaction: Uncover the high levels of interest and approval from attendees, with over 77% expressing interest in future UDL conferences and praising the event’s organization.
- Awesome conference planning tools: Sched facilitated the event’s success through user-friendly scheduling, professional presentation, valuable analytics, accessible content, and exceptional support.
We hope you enjoyed this conference planning success story!
Planning is underway for the next UDL Summit 2025. They are planning a two-day in-person and hybrid event. We can’t wait to see what they do next!
Make your own success by starting Sched for free now!
