Our Vision
Success for All
Our Mission
To Ensure Quality Learning Today for Tomorrow
Our Beliefs
• All students can and want to learn
• Student learning must be driven by outcomes of significance and be assessed in authentic ways
• Learning must be purposeful, challenging, stimulating, and rewarding for both students and staff
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So what is the “ Great Conversation ” and why are we doing this?
It is not about changing our beliefs but rather changing the system
Current system holds us back from achieving our beliefs
A Great Conversation is an open and honest community dialogue about the needs of our children
What kind of educational experience will be best to prepare them for success in the 21 st Century?
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The Great Conversation
• Is not a sales job!
– It is an honest attempt to involve the community in the conversation to develop a deeper understanding of what the future will require of our children.
• We are part of a greater effort to fundamentally change.
– This conversation is happening now within our neighboring school districts. The time and opportunity to act is now.
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The Great Conversation
• Schools are often criticized today:
– This includes College Community;
• Is it deserved?
– NO!!
– The truth is American schools are fabulously successful at producing the results that they were designed to produce!
• High standard of living;
• Innovation and technology;
• Strongest economy in the world;
This is about the system not the people working in the system!
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Why Change?
• What needs to happen to transform our system in ways that will allow the full potential of every child to be released?
– Should children should be grouped by what they know?
– Should children be grouped by what they can do – not by age?
– Should children ’ s interests and passions should be the basis of their learning?
– Should children should be able to progress at their own rate?
– Should learning should be constant, not time?
– Should learning connect to real problems and opportunities outside the walls of the school?
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Why Change?
• So if the system worked for 300 years and brought American society to a high level of prosperity and world leadership, why all the criticism?
– The world our system was designed for no longer exists!
• The Learned-to-Laborer ratio has flipped!
– We need every child prepared to compete in a highly trained, highly competitive world market!
We have expended heroic amounts of time and effort, blood, sweat, and tears in many cases trying to make the old system work in a new world; but no amount of effort can make that happen!
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Agrarian America no longer exists
The purpose of education was to
“ rake the genius from the rubble ”
Thomas Jefferson
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The Agrarian America changed to
Industrial America
So where ’ s the Disconnect?
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• We now live in a global society;
• Countries that previously were considered to be developing countries are now becoming world class economies;
• Countries that were previously considered to be developing are turning out college graduates in record numbers!
• As a result our education is in competition with the rest of the world;
• As a result the “ industrial Education Model ” no longer meets the needs of our changing world!
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Please discuss with a partner the following questions:
What evidence do you see that our education system was designed for another time?
“How do we rake the genius from the rubble?”
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The New System Would…
• Be grounded in the current context of our world:
– Innovation;
– Collaboration;
– Technology;
– Maximizing human potential of all children rather than sorting and separating.
Is our community ready for transformative change?
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We Try Hard to Change and Improve
A B
Culture and Community
Matter!
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A B
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Understand
Trust
Permit
Support
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The Informal Track
Average Daily Bus Ridership: 6,000 students
Total Number of Bus Routes: 81
Total Meals Served Per Year: 734,659
Total Bus Miles Driven in a Year: 750,000 Miles
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• To build community understanding, trust, permission and support we must:
– Provide concrete, practical reasons for them to feel good about their school;
– Continually and clearly explain the need for substantive change in the way we organize and deliver learning;
– Help individual community members understand what they have to personally gain when they have 21 st century schools;
– Continually demonstrate that we are engaged in open, honest dialogue and conversation with them.
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INFORMAL
What can we do today – now?
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The Five S ’ s of Success
Now
Bad mouthing one another in public
It takes 11 positive things to overcome one negative thing!
Today
Forever
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The Five S ’ s of Success
• Our attention to the positive
• See and point out the abundance and the positive
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The Five S ’ s of Success
Positive Messages with Your Personal Network
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The Five S ’ s of Success
The effort… share and document your individual and group progress
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The Five S ’ s of Success
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Conclusion
The Great Conversation holds the potential to give you support, permission, and flexibility to do what you need to do for the children of College Community
Our children need you!!
Can we count on you to be part of
The Great Conversation?
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