To the strains of Pomp and Circumstance and plenty of applause Wednesday evening, nearly 200 graduates of AASA’s Learning Network were honored for their participation in professional learning and certification programs.

Inside a ballroom at the Hilton Riverside in New Orleans, graduates in about 10 professional development cohorts walked up on stage for recognition and photographs. Kristine Gilmore, AASA associate executive director, implored the participants to keep investing in themselves, seek out innovative ways to educate students and build a strong network of colleagues.

“Together we can achieve great things when we know we have others,” Gilmore said.

Three of the professional learning programs — Aspiring Superintendents Academy® (spring 2024-25), Aspiring Superintendents Academy® for Latino and Latina Leaders (2024-25) and the AASA National Superintendent Certification Program® (West Cohort 2025) — completed their coursework on Wednesday.

The other five programs completed their training prior to the AASA National Conference on Education. Those programs are:  

• AASA National Superintendent Certification Program® (Midwest Cohort 2024); 
• Aspiring Superintendents Academy® (2023-24); 
• Aspiring Superintendents Academy® for Female Leaders (2023-24); 
• Urban Superintendents Academy (Howard University Cohort 2023-24); and 
• Urban Superintendents Academy (University of Southern California Cohort 2023-24) 

Before the ceremony, three participants in the Aspiring Superintendents Academy Spring 2025 cohort sat near each other in the ballroom: Kahlila Johnson, deputy chief of talent management in the School District of Philadelphia; Jesus Perez, a recently appointed CEO and superintendent of Nosotros Academy, a K-12 school in Tucson, Ariz.; and Tiffany Jacobson, principal of the Lincoln Early Childhood Center in the Westfield School District in Westfield, N.J.

All three praised the academy, which runs for 10 months via online and in-person sessions. “It was a very well thought-out curriculum with very pragmatic assignments and tasks that they had us go through to really start thinking about how we might respond and how to shape the way we might enter into our superintendent’s experience,” Jacobson said.

Johnson appreciated the opportunity to learn from her classmates. “The wonderful thing about it is that we had an opportunity to share experiences with each other, amongst districts, to shed some light on things that we are commonly experiencing as we continue to push forward to give children the best experience in public education,” Johnson said.

Perez, now six months into his job as superintendent, agreed. “It was great to meet with this cohort from all across the nation and hear their different perspectives, but a lot of similarities with respect to helping kids in poverty, students that are English language learners, kids with disabilities and trying to get them college and career ready,” he said.

As the event got underway, Dan Domenech, AASA’s former executive director, marveled at the size of the crowd and the growth of the programs, which began well after he took AASA’s helm.

Domenech is now superintendent-in-residence at the Age of Learning, a corporate partner of the AASA Learning Network that underwrote costs of the graduation reception.

“We can fill a room of graduates today,” Domenech said, “and it’s just an amazing thing.”

(Sarah Lindenfeld Hall is a senior editor on Conference Daily Online and a freelance writer in Raleigh, N.C.)