When One Student Changes, How Does the Whole School Benefit?
October 8 & 9, 2026 • Vail Village, Colorado
Presented by Shoulder-to-Shoulder
An immersive professional development event for school leaders who want to turn a single student's transformation into lasting school culture.
Special Thanks to our Educator Program Sponsors
SESSIONS
Thursday, October 8th
Breakfast and Opening Remarks
7:30 - 8:30 AM
The Antlers at Vail - Conference Room
Start your morning with freshly prepared breakfast bites, warm coffee, and great conversation with new faces. Enjoy a light meal and networking as we kick off the event with opening remarks and introductions.
SStS NGO Partners: Moral Examples from the Field
8:45 - 9:45 AM
The Antlers at Vail - Conference Room
Hear directly from NGO partners whose work reflects compassion, moral imagination, and community-driven leadership in the face of climate change, systemic injustice, and local challenges.
Fernando Maldonado
Farmer and Educator
Finca Caribe & Carite 3.0
Puerto Rico
Christina Lehew
Sanam Sherpa
From Student Transformation to Student Leadership
10 AM - 1 PM
The Antlers at Vail - Conference Room
How to Extract More Value for Your School Community From SStS
A working session—not a presentation. Using real SStS experiences as the starting point, school leaders design practical systems that help returning students influence faculty, younger students, families, and the broader school community. Participants leave with an implementation plan tailored to their own school.
Erika Twani & Dani Bedoni
Author, Becoming Einstein's Teacher & The Einstein Mindset; Master Coach, 30+ years in leadership development
Building an Ethics Center with Student Leadership
2:30 - 3:15 PM
The Sebastian - Lounge
Embedding Ethics Into School Culture: Learn how Ransom Everglades built an ethics center with student leadership to infuse ethics into the campus ethos.
Dr. John King
Chief of Innovation & Strategic Programming, History & Social Sciences Teacher
Ransom Everglades School
Miami, Florida
Customizing SStS for Your School
3:30 - 4:15 PM
Reinforcing Mission, Faculty, and Family Partnerships: Learn from schools that have customized SStS programs to reinforce mission, engage faculty, and deepen parent partnerships.
Elizabeth Miller
Head of School
The Children’s School
Atlanta, GA
Greg Chalfin
Head of School
Lake Hill Preparatory School
Dallas, TX
Meet the Speakers: Forum Mixer
5 - 7 PM
The Sebastian
Enjoy passed appetizers in a Shoulder-to-Shoulder microcosm — a cross-section of educators, NGO leaders, students, philanthropists, and business leaders, all in one room.
Friday, October 9th
Breakfast
7:30 - 8:15 AM
The Antlers
Welcome back! Start your morning with freshly prepared breakfast bites and warm coffee alongside familiar faces. Fuel up and reconnect with fellow attendees as we ease into Day 2 before launching into today's opening remarks.
Guiding the Power of Transformation: Moral Imagination, Student Agency, and Technology
8:15 - 9:30 AM
The Sebastian Ballroom
In one session, we weave the voices and experiences of our NGO partner Karma Sherpa (Co-Founder of The Small World Nepal), Evie and Lía (SSTS alumnae), and Erika Twani (author of Becoming Einstein’s Teacher and The Einstein Mindset, 2027) to illustrate an actionable strategy framework adaptable for already established programs in your school.
Lía Padilla & Evie Blan
SStS Alumni
American School Foundation of Guadalajara & Fort Worth Country Day
Guadalajara, Mexico & Dallas, TX
Sanam Sherpa
Erika Twani
Author
Becoming Einstein's Teacher & The Einstein Mindset
SStS Alumni Panel: A Message to Schools
9:50 - 10:15 AM
The Sebastian Ballroom
How does an SStS experience continue to influence choices long after the program ends? In this panel discussion, SStS alumni present directly to educators, school leaders, and younger alumni about how their field study transformed their transition into college, early careers, workspaces, and local communities.
Actionable Ideas in Practice: Miami Valley’s Immersion Term
10:15 - 10:45 AM
The Sebastian Ballroom
Learn how Miami Valley’s Immersion Term framework turns bold educational philosophy into actionable insights for the SStS community during this concise, high-impact talk.
Deborah Spiegel
Assistant Head of School
The Miami Valley School
Dayton, OH
Plenary Session: Healthcare as a Moral Ecosystem
11:15 - 1 PM
The Sebastian Ballroom
The full Forum convenes for a panel discussion and a Jeffersonian-style conversation centered on this year's theme. Rather than treating health as the responsibility of hospitals alone, we'll examine the shared obligations of healthcare providers, businesses, nonprofits, civic organizations, and citizens in building communities where every person has access to healthcare.
Will Cook
President & CEO
Christiana Beveridge, MD
Craig Jonas, Ph.D.
Founder
Dr. Kent Petrie
Family Physician & Founder
Opportunity and Responsibility: Making Experience Possible—and Asking “Now What?”
1:30 - 2:30 PM
The Sebastian - Vendavel
A two-part session to inspire our moral imaginations and consider our ethical responsibilities.
Expanding Access to Transformative Experiences
Meaningful experiences beyond the classroom can profoundly shape a young person’s sense of purpose, yet financial barriers often determine who can participate.
Tucker Foel will share the work of a foundation dedicated to helping schools provide students with experiences like those offered by SStS.
Bob Bandoni will present SStS’s efforts to widen access through matching financial assistance with Summer Search and members of the Global Schools.
Together, they will explore how schools, foundations, and partner organizations can combine resources so that family finances do not fully determine who has access to transformative learning.
“Now What?”
SStS field studies end with a question: Now What?
We ask of every SStS student: "You have had this experience—now what will you do with it?"
The Forum will close in the same spirit. Participants will be invited to reflect on what they have encountered, what has shifted in their thinking, and what they may carry into their schools, organizations, and communities.
The question also reaches more deeply: When significant resources, relationships, and trust make an experience possible, does opportunity bring with it some measure of responsibility? Rather than prescribing a particular response, this closing conversation creates space to consider what ethical action might follow this Forum experience.
Tucker Foehl
Founder of the Global Grants Initiative
Sacramento, CA
Steve O’Neil
Former Head of School at Vail Christian Academy
Founding Partner at NextEd