AASPA 2026 National Education Shortage Summit

National Educator Shortage Summit 

The National Educator Shortage Summit: Building a Sustainable Educator Workforce is a highly interactive convening of PK-20 stakeholders, bringing together PK-12 administrators, higher education leaders, state and local education agencies, and workforce partners to co-design solutions that strengthen the educator pipeline. This event moves beyond identifying the challenges of educator shortages to focus on actionable, data-informed strategies that sustain and support the education workforce.

Building upon the insights captured in Rewriting the Retention Playbook (2025), this year’s Summit emphasizes six critical shifts essential to building a sustainable educator workforce:

1. Development & Career Management – Expanding from linear advancement to dynamic, non-linear career pathways.
2. Employee Experience & Leadership – Equipping leaders to prioritize engagement, growth, and well-being.
3. Well-being & Work-life Integration – Moving from reactive burnout responses to proactive, holistic wellness.
4. Compensation & Benefits – Elevating transparency and understanding of total rewards and long-term value.
5. Recognition & Appreciation – Fostering daily cultures of gratitude that celebrate all staff contributions.
6. Strategic Retention – Aligning fragmented efforts into unified, system wide retention strategies.

Through structured collaboration, participants will engage in deep dialogue and practical planning that bridges preparation and practice, transforming one-off initiatives into coordinated, sustainable solutions. NESS provides a rare national space where policy, practice, and research intersect, enabling participants to share promising practices, analyze workforce data, and build shared strategies that are locally grounded yet nationally aligned. Above all, the Summit serves as a call to collaborative action, inviting all stakeholders to co-create a future in which every student is supported by a well-prepared, well-supported, and thriving educator.

Your agenda will include:

• Interactive discussions about barriers, challenges, successes and retention strategies
• Presentations from national data collectors and strategists 
• Retention discussions
• Action planning for solutions

Who is invited:

• PK-12 Administrators
• Higher Education Representatives
• Agency/Department of Education Representatives
• Teachers/Other Educators (e.g., specialized instructional support professionals like school psychologists, speech and language therapists, nurses, paraprofessionals) 
• Business Partners