SDEA Summer Academy

SDEA members are invited to make plans to attend the Summer Academy July 20–22, 2025 on the Augustana University campus. We are proud to feature a keynote from Jennifer Berkshire.

Breakout sessions have selections for a variety of professional development, leadership development, advocacy, and organizing. To earn a graduate credit, one must attend all three days of conference.

The Summer Academy is free and open to members only. We encourage your local to bring a team to take advantage of information from all sessions.

Mileage

SDEA will reimburse mileage for one driver of a local team in attendance. If your team is large enough for a second vehicle, that will be reimbursed. If you're close enough to warrant commuting each day rather than an overnight stay, SDEA will reimburse for mileage accordingly.

Lodging

SDEA will cover hotel for double occupancy at the Holiday Inn Downtown Sunday, July 20 and Monday, July 21. If you wish to indicate a roommate preference, you may do so in this registration. If you wish to have a single-occupancy room, you may make that request in this registration. A single room will cost you $70 per night.

DO NOT CALL the hotel to make a reservation. SDEA will reserve and assign rooms.

Meals

SDEA will provide breakfast and lunch at Augustana on Monday, July 21 and Tuesday, July 22. Attendees will be on their own for dinner each evening.

Graduate Credit

Attendees who participate in sessions on Sunday, July 20 from 2:30 pm to 6:00 pm and all sessions on Monday, July 21 and Tuesday, July 22, will earn enough hours for one graduate credit. You will need to sign in at each of the sessions you attend to receive the credit. One grad credit costs $50. Information for registering for the graduate credit will be available at the conference. **CECH's are not available at this conference.

Keynote Speaker Jennifer Berkshire

Jennifer Berkshire grew up in the Midwest, and while she has long since been transplanted to the East Coast, she will forever be a Heartlander at heart. She discovered her love for storytelling while covering a series of bitter labor battles in her native Illinois in the early 1990s. Grad school couldn’t compare, and so she forsook academic life for one of an itinerant interviewer. Her interest in—some would say ‘obsession’ with—public education began in 2006 when she took a job editing the statewide newspaper for AFT Massachusetts. She would go on to start an irreverent blog called EduShyster, chronicling the excesses of the education reform movement. 

Jennifer writes about the intersection of education and politics for the Nation, the New Republic, the Baffler, the New York Times, and other publications. She is the author of three books: More Worlds to Negotiate: John Dunlop and the Art of Problem Solving; A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door: The Dismantling of Public Education and the Future of School (with Jack), and The Education Wars: A Citizen’s Guide and Defense Manual (also with Jack). She teaches in the Boston College Prison Education Program. A licensed public school teacher, Jennifer lives in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Contact Information

If you have questions or concerns at any time, please reach out to SDEA.

Christy Ryland 
[email protected]
605-224-9263
Administrative Assistant

Korey Erickson 
[email protected]
605-222-3905
Leadership Development Coordinator

Registration

No Show Policy