P-16 Education Conference

Let me introduce you to the Ideacenter at Playhouse Square in Cleveland. They pipe NPR in while you are using the Ladies Room. How wonderful is this place?

I traveled there last week to attend a P-16 (think pre-k through college) Education Conference. It's a growing movement in the United States, creating collaboratives in communities to integrate business, non-profits, and other community entities to wrap around a student until they are solidly in the work force. It truly does take a village to raise a child. They need to see opportunities in the labor force, have mentors to create dreams and self worth, and understand the value of service.  

There aren't many successful P-16 collaborative around the state. At least they aren't very public about their efforts and there is no centralized database, so I can't find any in my region. There are a few successful efforts up in Northeast Ohio, so that is where Senator Brown hosted the conference.  Plus it's his district. Here he is, speaking to the group (really bad cell phone picture on left)

 Most of the conference was built off panels of stakeholders and policy makers, all taped and live streamed over the Internet.  I found it particularly funny they proudly proclaimed that since it was online, it was visible all over the state, and even all over the country!  Oh, the wonders of technology.  On the right is what the studio and one of the panels looked like.

There actually was a unique technology application that TurningPoint Technologies brought: clickers! (which you can see sitting on my folder on the left).  Conference participants responded to survey questions the organizers created and posted on screen in the front of the room.  They were simple requests for input, like what is the most valuable topic we would want cover or hear from the panelists.  We had 30 seconds to respond, then the results of the over 130 responses were displayed in a bar graph on the screen. It was pretty cool to shape the conference as we moved along and then have an outlet for immediate feedback, especially when one of the panels shifted their prepared remarks based on what the conference goers submitted as responses.

Someone from the U.S. Department of Education flew in from Washington DC to help give a picture of what the Department is currently working on and what direction they are heading.  His panel was also joined by members of the Ohio Department of Education.  Educators at the conference had a golden opportunity to bring up concerns and submit input straight to the policy makers.  It was encouraging to hear the US Dept of Ed representative affirming that their direction is exactly the direction of the P-16 mindset: collaboration with universities for high schools, getting kids in local businesses for experience, and providing resources and mentors for a community ans service based wrap around education, all beginning before they even start kindergarten and lasting until they have graduated post-secondary education and have entered the job force. 

This is all very helpful for my work, as I'm getting a feel for who is involved in the education field.  I had no idea before this job of all the extra entities: ESC, FCFC, community groups like P-16 and mandated initiatives like FCE coordinators. I want the buy-in from administrators but the action and passion from people like guidance counselors who will actually use my program. I thought this would be an easy job compared to my high pressure sales-oriented job from you-know-where a couple summers ago, considering my job now is "selling" a free service that benefits families and supports the community. I'm finding it's a lot harder that just telling people about the great program. I still have to sell it, and sell it to the right people. And keep selling it.

It was refreshing and a definite encouragement to get out of the office and participate in a conference where I could both learn and have a say in the P-16 movement in Ohio.