2027 Call for Presentations
The Call for Presentations will be open from Tuesday, October 13 - Friday, November 13, 2026.
Each year, McKinney-Vento liaisons and school district professionals come together at the California Statewide Homeless Education Conference to learn from one another, explore solutions, exchange resources, and strengthen their ability to support students experiencing homelessness.
As you prepare your session proposal, please keep our primary audience—McKinney-Vento liaisons—at the center of your thinking. We are seeking content that supports and equips these professionals in their roles, offering them relevant strategies, insights, and best practices for supporting students experiencing homelessness. While the experiences of students are vital and should inform our work, this conference is designed specifically to strengthen the capacity of McKinney-Vento liaisons and school district personnel rather than serve as a direct forum for students.
Have an Idea? Share It!
Your experience could be the insight another liaison needs. Your strategy could help a district overcome a challenge. Your research could spark a new approach. Your session could make a difference.
Transform your ideas, expertise, best practices, and research into a presentation for the 2027 California Statewide Homeless Education Conference (CALHEC).
Join us March 10–11, 2027, and help shape the learning, connection, and collaboration that move our work forward.
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Three Easy Steps to Submit Your Proposal
Interested in sharing your knowledge, experience, and vision for the future?
What are we looking for?
Focus Areas for 2027
What are the education session formats?
How are education sessions selected?
What are our guidelines?
When will I know if I have been selected?
Three Easy Steps to Submit Your Proposal
- Review the guidelines and proposal criteria on this Call for Presentations page.
- Start preparing your session proposal (title, abstract, learning objectives, and speaker information for yourself and any co-presenters, panelists or moderators).
- Submit a session proposal for review by our conference committee. The deadline to submit is Friday, November 13, 2026.
Interested in sharing your knowledge, experience, and vision for the future?
The California Statewide Homeless Education Conference 2027 will be held March 9-11 in sunny San Diego, CA. We are currently seeking proposals to present a concurrent breakout session at the conference. This highly anticipated annual conference offers more than 25 educational sessions and a variety of opportunities for collaboration and networking. The conference provides a dynamic forum to share knowledge, explore solutions, address challenges, and strengthen practices. We invite you to share your implementation strategies, engagement frameworks, best practices, research and data, innovative approaches, or programs that are making a difference for children and young people experiencing homelessness.
Bring your knowledge, experience, and ideas to CALHEC 2027—and help inspire and strengthen the work happening across California.
What are we looking for?
We are seeking a diverse range of innovative, engaging, inspiring, and informative topics for educators and McKinney-Vento liaisons. Our goal is to provide timely, relevant learning opportunities that equip attendees with practical knowledge, strategies, and tools to strengthen their work and better serve students experiencing homelessness and students in foster care.
We welcome proposals at introductory, intermediate, and advanced levels to meet the diverse needs and experience of our attendees. While foundational content is valuable for those new to the work, we also want to ensure that experienced McKinney-Vento liaisons have opportunities to deepen their practice, expand their expertise, explore complex challenges, and learn new approaches.
Presentations should spark new ideas, encourage meaningful dialogue, and inspire innovative solutions. We invite sessions that share effective practices, practical strategies, fresh perspectives, research, and actionable resources that attendees can bring back to their schools, districts, and agencies.
Help us create a conference program that supports professionals at every stage of their journey—from building foundational knowledge to advancing practice and leading meaningful change.
Focus Areas for 2027
DATA: Topics such as LCAP, Dashboard, CALPADS, DataQuest, Data-to-action and using data to identify gaps and improve student outcomes
SPECIAL POPULATIONS: Topics such as Parenting & Pregnant, LGBTQ, Tribal, Unaccompanied Youth, Special Education/Disabilities, Migrant, Refugees, and more...
EARLY EDUCATION: Topics such as Head Start, Accessibility, Transportation, and more.
COLLEGE/CAREER: Topics such as Access to Higher Education, Career/Technical Schools, FAFSA, and more...
LEGISLATION: Topics such as Federal & State Laws
ACCESSIBILITY & RESOURCES: Topics such as Transportation, Housing, Identification, Mental Health, Medical, Food, etc.
TRAUMA/RESILIENCY that focuses on Children, Youth and Families experiencing homelessness and School Personnel (Liaisons, Teachers, Counselors, etc.)
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: Training for Various Entities such as Certificated & Classified Staff, Community Agencies, etc.
FUNDING & SUSTAINABILITY: General/Local Funds, Donations for Homeless Education, Sustainability and strategic use of EHCY, Title I, State/Local, and other resources
IDENTIFICATION & OUTREACH: Including housing questionnaires and identifying students who may be missed
ACADEMIC PROGRESS & GRADUATION PATHWAYS: Attendance, engagement, mobility, credit accrual, and graduation
NAVIGATING RURAL HOMELESSNESS: Rural homelessness and the unique challenges facing rural LEAs/COEs
STUDENT & FAMILY VOICE, WELL-BEING AND BELONGING
What are the education session formats?
CALHEC offers six session formats designed to create engaging, interactive, and dynamic learning experiences. When submitting your proposal, select the format that best aligns with your content, presentation style, and learning objectives.
Each educational session is 75 minutes. Please plan your session to include at least 15 minutes for audience participation, discussion, and/or Q&A to encourage meaningful engagement and the exchange of ideas.
- Solo Presenter with PowerPoint presentation
- Co-Presenters (myself and a colleague) with PowerPoint presentation
- Workshop-Solo Presenter: A workshop is a training session where the presenter works directly with participants to teach them a new skill or concept. Workshops are usually small, so the group can participate in the learning and interact with the presenter.
- Workshop-Co-Presenters (myself and a colleague): A workshop is a training session where the presenters work directly with participants to teach them a new skill or concept. Workshops are usually small, so the group can participate in the learning and interact with the presenters.
- Panel Presentation: Panel presentations include a group of people discussing one topic. Each panelist speaks on a distinct topic relating to the session theme. These sessions include a moderator and 3-4 panelists with a PowerPoint Presentation (no more than 5 people).
- Roundtable Discussion: Roundtable discussions include a group of experts discussing a topic. A moderator leads the discussion, but all participants speak equally about the topic, with no distinct topic assigned to each participant. These sessions include a chair, three to five participants and NO PowerPoint Presentation.
- Keynote Speaker: A keynote speaker is the featured speaker. Their primary role is to deliver a keynote address—a speech that sets the underlying tone, central theme, or main message of the event.
How are education sessions selected?
All submissions are reviewed and evaluated by the CALHEC Education Committee comprised of experts from the California Homeless Education Technical Assistance Centers (HETACs), SchoolHouse Connection (SHC), and the California Department of Education (CDE).
Presentations will be selected based on their relevance to the field and target audience, ability to address policy/program areas, engaging format, interactive design, and originality.
Your success in the selection process depends on how well your proposal supports these primary criteria:
- The submitted proposal is thoughtfully and thoroughly completed.
- Speaker(s) demonstrates relevant experience and expertise.
- Practical application: Provides information that participants in their day-to-day work settings can use, offers lessons-learned and how-to-do-it strategies, and offers solutions for sustainability and resiliency of youth homelessness operations.
- Leading-edge: Addresses emerging trends and technologies, innovative concepts and approaches, and solutions to improve the provision of children and youth homelessness.
- Relevance and clarity: Content is interesting and useful to a significant number of expected attendees. Participant takeaways are clearly stated using active verbs that indicate how they will benefit from the information presented. (A maximum of three clearly defined learning objectives is preferred.)
- Participant takeaways: All proposals must include learner objectives and learner takeaways. Indicate how the attendee will benefit from the presentation. The participant takeaways must be worded in response to the phrase: “At the conclusion of this session, participants will be better able to________.”
- Avoids promotion of company products and services: Our audience is seeking a rich educational experience, so proposals that promote or sell products or services are discouraged.
What are our guidelines?
No sales pitches! Direct promotion of a speaker’s/company’s products, services, or monetary self-interest is not appropriate for education sessions. Our audience appreciates learning about technologies, services, concepts, and new approaches; but is sensitive to the sales promotion approach.
Speaker registration and travel expenses: Speakers are responsible for making arrangements and paying for travel and other expenses associated with attending the conference. If your proposal is accepted, all speakers listed will be asked to register for the conference and complete a Speaker Agreement in order to confirm your participation in the program. Speakers attending the full conference are expected to register and pay the appropriate Speaker registration fee.
Scheduling: All sessions will be scheduled for Wednesday, March 10, or Thursday, March 11, 2027. Presenters must be available to present on either day during this two-day period. Please note: Breakout sessions conclude by noon on Thursday, March 11.
Presentation handouts from sessions will be posted on the CALHEC website and in the CALHEC Events mobile app. They will be offered free to registered attendees. Handouts will not be posted without your express permission. Handouts will be posted in a PDF format, thus preventing individuals from tampering with or altering your original in any way.
When will I know if I have been selected?
All primary and co-presenters are expected to review and understand the submission requirements before a proposal is submitted. Please ensure that every presenter is familiar with the guidelines and expectations for CALHEC presentations.
The primary contact on each proposal submitted will be notified of the pending-acceptance/decline status on November 30, 2026. This communication will be sent via email from the Education Team (education@cahomelesseducation.com). Please note emails will NOT come from CDE Staff or HETAC Staff.
If your proposal receives a “Pending Acceptance” status, the primary presenter is responsible for ensuring that everyone listed as a presenter completes all required steps by the stated deadlines.
This includes ensuring that each session presenter (co-presenter, panelist and/or moderator), regardless of role, completes their Speaker Agreement and registers for the conference by the required deadline.
A session will be considered officially accepted only after ALL listed presenters have completed their Speaker Agreements and conference registration. If any required agreement or registration is not completed by the deadline, the Pending Acceptance will be void and the session will not be confirmed.
All correspondence regarding your session proposal(s) will be sent to the email address provided in your submission form. If your work email has strict security or filtering settings, we recommend using a personal email address to help ensure you receive all conference communications.
You will receive submission notifications and other important updates from the CALHEC Education Team at education@cahomelesseducation.com. Please add this email address to your safe-sender or approved list to help prevent messages from being filtered as spam or junk.