COTA October 24th, 2025 Professional Development Day at Mount Boucherie Secondary School

Please find the Session Brochure here, october-24th,-2025-prod-session-pamphlet-v.4.pdf

Registration opens October 3rd on https://cota.ebasefm.com/programs.

Registration closes October 16th.

This years' Keynote is Samantha Woods, Founder of Kaizen Education Services
A former teacher, learning support specialist, and executive brain functioning skills coach, Samantha Woods knows what it’s like to feel powerless in the face of a system that overlooks struggling students and burns out the educators trying to support them. She created Kaizen Education Services and The Brain Hub Academy to close that gap. Samantha founded Kaizen Education Services to transform traditional education.
For over 25 years, she has explored how brain science intersects with learning, behavior, and mental health. She has built a movement around one radical idea:
executive functioning skills aren’t optional—they’re essential.

• Rooted in neuroscience, her programs, coaching, keynotes, and workshops bring clarity, hope, and practical tools to educators, parents and corporate teams—so everyone can thrive, not just survive.
  
  
• With over three decades of experience in the classroom and neurodiversity advocacy, Samantha doesn’t just deliver “PD Days” “parent sessions” or ”‘lunch and learns”—she builds bridges between what research tells us and what real life demands so that all brains can leave with tangible strategies and processes to make life work for students, their teachers and their parents.
  
  
• Through her signature program, The Brain Hub Academy, Samantha helps educators and parents move from frustration to clarity by teaching the real-life, brain-based skills that drive academic success, emotional regulation, mental health, well-being, and, most importantly, resilience.
  
  
• Her workshops and coaching sessions are known for being practical, energizing, and rooted in lived experience—not just theory. She believes educators can’t pour from an empty cup and that schools need more than referrals—they need solutions that actually work in the classroom.
  
  
• Her mantra? People do well if they can. Her mission? To make executive skills education accessible, inclusive, and empowering for everyone—no diagnosis required.

You must complete a Self-Directed form on MyCota.ca, if you are not attending the COTA conference PRIOR to October 14th. A self-directed form must be completed if you are attending any conference or session on October 24^th not offered by COTA or if you are doing alternate pro-d activities. SD23 requires employees to be on an SD23 site if not at a conference as October 24^th is considered to be a workday.

If you are interested in presenting at a COTA Professional Development Day, please go to Call for Presenters and fill out the application form. Submissions are due September 29th for the October 24th day.

Please reach out to your COTA school/site Professional Development Representative or to COTA Professional Development Chairperson (cotaprod@sd23.bc.ca) if you have any questions or concerns, or if you require additional information.

Programs in Professional Development brought to you by the Central Okanagan Teachers' Association

Pro-D Handbook 2023, 2024.docx

Above is the link to the COTA Pro-D Handbook if you are curious about what is considered to be pro-d and what you can use your pro-d funds for reimbursement.