Creating supportive and affirming learning environments for LGBTQ+ students and staff will be the focus on this year’s Lead With Pride Summit — and it’s never been more important.

As school boards and legislatures around the country adopt policies targeting LGBTQ+ youth, ACSA’s Lead With Pride Summit promises to give educators tools and knowledge to protect LGBTQ+ students in schools.

“Our LGBTQ+ students and school supports have been challenged this year due to politics in our country. The ACSA Lead With Pride Summit is needed more than ever,” said Carol Osborne, planning committee chair for this year’s summit and associate superintendent of Learning Support Services at Poway USD. “It is imperative that schools understand our role and the law to support LGBTQ+ students to be safe, valued and seen. This conference celebrates our LGBTQ+ students and administrators to lead with authenticity, purpose and courage!”

“Leading with Authenticity, Purpose and Courage!” is the theme for this year’s conference, held May 3-5 in San Diego. There’s still time to be a part of this professional development opportunity. Attendees will gain insights and best practices from more than a dozen sessions with titles such as:

(See full session topics at bitly/2023LeadWithPride.)

The conference will also feature two panel presentations — one with students and another with administrators — giving conference attendees an opportunity to hear from authentic voices about their experiences in education.

One of this year’s conference keynotes is internationally acclaimed author, poet, comedian and public speaker ALOK (they/them). As a mixed-media artist, their work explores themes of trauma, belonging and the human condition. They are the author of “Femme in Public” (2017), “Beyond the Gender Binary” (2020) and “Your Wound/My Garden” (2021), and the creator of #DeGenderFashion, an initiative to degender fashion and beauty industries.

In recognition of their work, they have been honored as the inaugural LGBTQ Scholar in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania and awarded a GLAAD Media Award and Stonewall Foundation Visionary Award. Over the past decade, they have toured in more than 40 countries, most recently selling out their runs at the Soho Theatre in London, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the Kennedy Performing Arts Center.

On screen, ALOK will make their feature film debut in “Absolute Dominion” opposite Patton Oswalt and next can be seen in Emmie Lichtenberg’s film “Complicated Order” opposite Midori Francis. On television, they have appeared on Hulu’s “Planet Sex with Cara Delevingne,” ABC’s “PRIDE: To Be Seen – A Soul of A Nation,” Netflix’s “Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness,” HBO’s “Random Acts of Flyness” and “The Trans List.”