The third annual Better Together: California Teachers Summit will feature Jill Biden as the keynote speaker, organizers have announced.

The free day of learning is open to all California educators and will take place on July 28 at Cal State San Bernardino and the CSUSB Palm Desert Campus, and dozens of other locations across the state. Registration is now open and can be done online at the event web page.

“The Better Together: California Teachers Summit provides teachers in the Inland Empire the opportunity to meet and discuss the best practices for teaching, practices that have been tested in the experiences of teachers in our region,” said Todd Jennings, an assistant dean in CSUSB’s College of Education, which is hosting the event at the university. “The daily demands of teaching often leave teachers unable to share ideas and strategies with teachers not in their districts or schools. Better Together provides that opportunity to learn from each other in ways that benefit the region’s youth, and indeed our collective future.”

Biden, wife of former Vice President Joe Biden, is a lifelong educator who has taught at community colleges, a public high school and a psychiatric hospital for adolescents over her 30-year teaching career.

As Second Lady, she worked to highlight the importance of community colleges to America’s future while continuing to teach as a full-time English professor at a community college in Northern Virginia. With the February 2017 launch of the Biden Foundation, Biden and her husband will continue their commitment to public education.

“Dr. Biden is an inspiration for all California teachers,” said Leslee Milch of Carl E. Gilbert Elementary School in the Buena Park School District. “We can’t wait to hear her insights from the classroom and her vision to better support all of our students.”

The theme of this year’s summit is “Now More Than Ever,” which reflects the importance of bringing teachers together to listen and learn from one another. Sessions will focus on timely topics ranging from addressing bullying in the classroom to celebrating diversity to teaching students to be open-minded, critical thinkers.

By bringing California teachers together, the summit will empower teachers to support our students, protect our values as educators and set an example for the nation. Biden will speak at the headquarters site of Saint Mary's College of California, and her remarks will be simulcast to 34 other sites across the state.

“We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Biden to campus,” said Christopher Sindt, dean of Saint Mary’s Kalmanovitz School of Education. “Over her three decades in education and during her time as Second Lady, Dr. Biden has served as a role model for teachers across the country.”

The Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities, the California State University and New Teacher Center are organizing the third annual summit.

The event is free to all California pre-K-12 teachers, teacher candidates, school administrators and other educators.

For more information, visit www.cateacherssummit.com, and follow @CATeacherSummit on Facebook and Twitter for updates.

About AICCUThe Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities represents 75 private nonprofit colleges and universities in California who collectively enroll 320,000 students and is the largest preparer of California’s advanced workforce. The core mission of AICCU institutions is to improve lives through higher education. AICCU institutions are committed to the public good and are incredibly diverse – ranging from large to small traditional liberal arts institutions, including nationally ranked research universities; colleges offering faith-based, performing and visual arts, and “non-traditional” programs of study; as well as professional schools that specialize in business, law, medicine and more. In addition to providing creative and intellectual higher education resources to assure California’s future societal and economic vitality, AICCU institutions are major contributors to the economies of the regions they serve.

About CSUThe California State University is the largest system of senior higher education in the country, with 23 campuses, 50,800 faculty and staff, and 479,000 students. Half of the CSU's students transfer from California Community Colleges. Created in 1960, the mission of the CSU is to provide high-quality, affordable education to meet the ever-changing needs of California. With its commitment to quality, opportunity and student success, the CSU is renowned for superb teaching, innovative research and for producing job-ready graduates. Each year, the CSU awards more than 110,000 degrees. One in every 20 Americans holding a college degree is a graduate of the CSU and our alumni are 3.3 million strong. Connect with and learn more about the CSU in the CSU NewsCenter.

About NTC New Teacher Center is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to improving student learning by guiding a new generation of educators. Founded by teachers in 1998, NTC works in conjunction with school districts, state policy makers and educators across the country to increase the effectiveness of teachers and school leaders at all levels. These programs are built upon research-based principles for teacher onboarding, mentoring and ongoing coaching, and proven to accelerate teacher effectiveness, reduce teacher churn and improve student achievement. NTC has made it their mission to overcome challenges students and teachers face by providing all educators with the support and resources necessary to succeed from their first day to their last. NTC now supports over 8,500 mentors or coaches and 31,600 teachers, and is improving the learning of over 2.2 million students across the country.