Education Summits Help Students
December 17, 2009 - Education summits are being used by principals at schools in the Wakefield and Wake Forest communities to bring community leaders together, examine area student needs and design solutions to meet student needs.
The process builds strong connections as educators work with parent, community and business leaders to develop a common understanding of issues facing students and then work together to create solutions to help students succeed.
Wakefield Education Summit
In the Wakefield community, five schools have been working together. Leaders from Forest Pines Elementary, North Forest Pines Elementary, Wakefield Elementary, Wakefield Middle and Wakefield High have held a series of meetings that began in September.
 Drew Bridges speaks at Wake Forest Education Summit, while Denise Tillery holds brainstorming list. |
“We decided to pool our efforts together,” said Chris McCabe, principal of North Forest Pines Elementary. “We realized we had a lot of things in common. In our schools we share the same families. We vie for support from the same community groups and businesses. We all work toward the goals of strengthening schools and raising student achievement.”
In the first education summit, educators and community leaders met to review student achievement data and identify areas where students needed additional support. They discussed issues of achievement gaps, attendance and retention.
“In the discussions, it was pretty clear that the majority of the group’s number one suggestion to us was some type of a community-based mentoring/tutoring program,” said McCabe. “We took that feedback and developed a proposal to discuss in a follow up summit we held in November.”
The plan is for a Saturday Academy that will provide tutoring services for grades 3-9 to begin in March. In addition to this plan, there is a parent task force being put together that will work in collaboration with the recently hired Saturday Academy co-directors. The task force and principals foresee this program expanding to include students K-12, offering mentoring services and enrichment opportunities for all students.
Wake Forest Education Summit
Meanwhile, on the other side of US 1 in northern Wake County, principals from Wake Forest-Rolesville High, Wake Forest-Rolesville Middle, Wake Forest Elementary, Heritage Elementary, Heritage Middle and Jones Dairy Elementary held a first summit meeting with community leaders in November.
"We realized that we are all working on the very same obstacles regarding literacy,” said Denise Tillery, principal Wake Forest Elementary. “Our main purpose was to really focus on what are our needs and how can we involve the community members to help achieve those needs."
Wake Forest Education Summit |
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Lee Perry: One of the things that I found most interesting was the different levels of literacy in the schools and the different degrees that we have K-12 - the ones that are the high level readers and the moderate and then the ones that really struggle learning to read all the way up through high school. |
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Drew Bridges: And how much energy the school system really is putting into reading. I was not aware of just how much they focused on that. And I got a better appreciation for how important it is. |
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Cathy Potter: One thing I also learned was I did not realize the extent that some students don’t have experience with, like you read books about the beach. Some have never even touched the sand or been in the water. So it’s hard to relate to things that you read if you have not experienced them. |
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At the Wake Forest summit, a review of test data showed Wake Forest students achieve at similar rates to the county, Wake Forest graduation rates are higher than average, younger students are more successful and there are achievement gaps. There was also a discussion of the complexity of reading; the connections between reading and writing; and the focus on foundational literacy, word recognition, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension – how over time these areas develop and assessments change.
In small group discussions, summit participants brainstormed ideas, shared the ideas and discussed solutions. They voted on priorities. The top vote getters were: conducting a community literacy campaign, creating community partnerships and working with the chamber and businesses to provide time for employees to volunteer.
“We’ve got a direction,” said Dhedra Lassiter, principal Heritage Middle School. “By a clear vote, we know that we need to do a community campaign to share information about literacy in the Wake Forest area schools. From that, we can find out ways that they can help us. Perhaps we can be very specific about ways they can help us and I think we would be more inclined to get help if we tell them: we need A, B and C, rather than just say: come and help us. So we’ll set those clear steps and move in that direction.”
Education Summits
Education summits are being used by principals to build new connections to help students.
“I think there has already been an impact,” said Chris McCabe. “We’ve created an open door where the community and parents feel like we are wanting them, not just to be involved – but to be involved in making decisions about school and doing specific things that will help the school move forward. I think we’ve opened that process at a deeper level.”
The education summit model is one that principals are beginning to use across the school system to bring parents, educators and the community together to look at the needs that students have and find ways to address them. Through working together, school communities can find solutions to better help children.
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Educators and community leaders discuss ways
to help students during the Wake Forest Education Summit.
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