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Week 1 - Introducing the Summit
We’ve decided to try something new and hope you’ll come along with us on an exciting continuous learning experiment.
Based on your feedback and the significant amount of time and capacity everyone is still dedicating to address and survive the residual and ongoing effects of the last year, your Backbone support team has decided to shift gears.
We’ve heard that your schedules are filled with deep work …
- Adapting day-to-day to ever changing COVID regulations,
- Re-engaging students to help them complete last year’s unfinished learning,
- Launching new Success Networks and equity teams, and
- Figuring out how to straddle the “new normal” of living in both an in-person and virtual world.
And yet we know you also care about systemically addressing educational inequities by working together …
- Across systems – linking nonprofits with school districts, early childhood education with early grade K-5 success, and funders with educators,
- Across geographies – linking promising practices from West Marin to meet family needs in Marin City, and
- Across the Cradle-to-Career continuum.
We, the Backbone Team, recognize these tradeoffs and want to support your work together in a way that connects the dots, overcomes barriers, and amplifies your successes without over-taxing your capacity.
So we’ve decided to try something new. Over the next 6 weeks we will be transforming the previously scheduled live zoom events into an engaging, asynchronous experience that is inclusive of folks who can’t engage in real-time and brings us together in new ways.
Instead of meeting over zoom for the Partnership Summit, we’ll be creating a series of short videos with interactive, online reflection tools, Q&A Bulletin Boards, and Crowdsourced word clouds that we hope you’ll watch, share, and engage with on-line.
These videos will feature you, the Partners, in your own voice, as you share your insights, success stories, and ongoing challenges. We will be experimenting with a variety of formats from short 90 second Partner Profiles to 15-20 minute panel conversations to “podcast” like audio files.
If you have a story to tell that relates to the collective work of the Partnership, existing video footage to share, or an idea for how we can make this new format useful and impactful please get in touch with Jacqui or Shelley on our communication team: jacqui@marinpromisepartnership.org or shelley@marinpromisepartnership.org.
Otherwise, stay tuned and get ready to engage in new and exciting ways!
Sneak peak preview of upcoming Partnership video conversations …
The Partnership’s Journey – Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
In 2012, a group of what would soon become Marin Promise Partners, gathered together as a “Kitchen Cabinet” leadership team, to transform Marin’s education landscape. Guided by research on key cradle-to-career milestones and informed by StriveTogether and the collective impact movement, these systems leaders made a promise to Marin’s children – to achieve educational equity in Marin by 2028.
That promise is rapidly approaching. While much has been achieved, major setbacks (COVID!) and persistent barriers create a renewed sense of urgency. Join your colleagues and community members to reflect back over the last 10 years, renew your commitment to take antiracist action TODAY, and together envision a more equitable TOMORROW.
- Yesterday: Bright Spot & Persistent Challenges
- Today: Seven Core Initiatives for 2021-22
- Tomorrow: Building a Strategic Plan to achieve educational equity by 2028
Invited Panelists
- Chandra Alexandre, Founding Partnership Board President and Leadership Team representative, CEO Community Action Marin [confirmed]
- Sergio Dominguez, Partnership’s Youth & Family Council and Strategic Planning Committee Member, Shoreline Unified School District Student
- Anna Pilloton, Partner Representative and Strategic Planning Committee Member, Director of School & Community Partnerships, College of Marin [confirmed]
Learning Happens Everywhere – Lessons from COVID19
One important lesson that was reinforced by COVID is the reality that learning doesn’t just happen in the classroom – it happens in after school clubs and tutoring support, on the playing field, at the kitchen table, online, and during the summer. Furthermore, it is often the “out of school” time where inequitable access to enrichment and support can dramatically impact inequitable outcomes back in school. And, when in-and-out-of-school time experiences are brought together, the focus naturally becomes a whole-child approach to learning. This nexus, between on-line connectivity and in-person learning, between wrap-around social and health sector supports and in-class attendance, and between summer engagement and confident ready learners is the topic of this second Partner Panel. Check back soon to find out more about …
- 2021 Expanded Summer Learning Opportunities: What can the Partnership carry forward from the SummerPromise+ experience and the West Marin Summer Together Success?
- Digital Inclusion: Closing the digital divide goes way beyond COVID19 recovery. Panelist will talk about a few of the lessons learned from the hotspot partnership, parent digital literacy efforts, The canal neighborhood mesh network, West Marin connectivity enhancements and the launch of Digital Marin.
- Expanding Success Networks: Where COVID19 spotlighted the connection between academic and social/emotional/physical wellbeing, Success Networks are taking up the baton to ensure high school students become Future Ready in college, a career & beyond. Like Community Schools, Success Networks coordinate and expand student access to vital social and health services both on and off campus. Through these networks, students who have traditionally been the most impacted by educational inequities are supported to increase their class attendance, complete unfinished credits and graduate with the classes they need to be eligible to apply to a UC or CSU.
Invited Panelists
- JC Farr, Principal Tamalpais High School [confirmed] in conversation with Bob Lenz, CEO PBLWorks [confirmed] and Rondel Gibson, Partnership Board member and College Access Program Director for 10,000 Degrees
- Panelist Confirmation Coming Soon (Digital Marin Committee Member)
- Panelist Confirmation Coming Soon (Youth & Family Council member, Community Advocate, and/or West Marin Summer Together Advocate)
Crossroads & Intersections – Strategic Funding Shifts Create Sustainable System Transformation
An infusion of funding from American Rescue Plan (ARP) dollars and new Statewide investments in Early Childhood Education has the potential to radically transform the landscape of education. Beyond COVID recovery and mitigation, is an unprecedented opportunity to invest in sustainable, systemic, equitable change. Will this new funding weave together and coordinate support from Cradle-to-Career across systems or will competition for resources reinforce existing siloes? Can philanthropy be engaged in new ways? Will resource shifts enable the integration of preschool into K-8 districts? And, how can the Partnership continue to support efforts to sustainably and systemically anchor equity into Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAPs) and District Budgets? Check back soon to find out more about …
- American Rescue Plan = $109,674,000 Dollars coming into Marin: How are School Districts, Municipal agencies, and Early Childhood Education groups going to invest this money? [check out the ARP table on the SummerPromise+ webpage]
- Integrating preschool into the Shoreline School District: Combining multiple funding sources; Getting the job done with humility, courage and persistence! Benefits and challenges going forward.
- West Marin Fund: How does having a funder at the collaborative action table shift the system?
- From Equity Blueprints to LCAPS to Budgets: COVID gave equity an added urgency and then provided districts with an extra year to develop their new 3 year LCAP plans. This unique confluence of urgency and added space to plan, coming right after local districts had completed their Equity Blueprints, resulted in a greater focus on equity showing up in many LCAPs and district budgets; Standards based grading, project based learning, ethnic studies, and multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) are just a few of the equity-related shifts that multiple districts have budgeted for in this year’s LCAP process.
Invited Panelists
- Panelist Confirmation Coming Soon (Funder Partner)
- Panelist Confirmation Coming Soon (School District and/or Preschool Partner)
- Panelist Confirmation Coming Soon (California Cradle-to-Career Legislative Action Cohort Member)
- Panelist Confirmation Coming Soon (Youth & Family Council member)
StriveTogether Convening (Oct 4-8)
As with last year, we teamed up with the national StriveTogether Convening to offer you a truly unique virtual conference opportunity. Many of you joined your Marin Promise Partners in virtually attending the StriveTogether National Convening — truly a fall opportunity to “think nationally and act locally”
Keynote speakers included:
- Heather McGhee, economist and author of The Sum of Us
- Maria Hinojosa, journalist
- Julián Castro, former Democratic presidential candidate, secretary of housing and urban development, and mayor of San Antonio.
Official access to the StriveTogether Convening has closed but we will feature some of the content on this page over the next 6 months. Contact Jacqui@marinpromisepartnership.org.
Click on any of the items below to view content from other weeks
Marin Designated as an Educational Equity Systems Change Community
Based on the work of Marin Promise Partners, the National Strive Together Cradle to Career Network has certified the county as a Systems Change community.
Racial Equity Statement
Marin Promise Partners believe that a shared racial equity statement will amplify our collective impact. Join us in posting this statement and promoting racial equity in Marin.
A Framework for Antiracist Action
Moving All Forms of “Race-Neutral” “Unbiased” Leadership into Actively and Boldly Affirming and Advancing Racial Equity Across Marin Through Antiracist Work.
Partner Resource Referrals: Racial Equity Professional Development
This is a list of partners’ professional development resources referrals to each other.
Cultural Responsiveness Summary Report
A four page overview including the results of the Leadership Council’s self-assessment effort.
Cultural Responsiveness Baseline Report
A comprehensive 43 page report on findings and recommendations from the Leadership Council’s baseline racial equity self assessment process.
Fall Partnership Summit – Week 5: Making Systemic Shifts in Policy, Practice, and Power
Week five’s Summit theme highlighted key systemic shifts that are being made in Policies, Practices and Power dynamics through short Partner videos.
Fall Partnership Summit – Week 4: The Power of Partnerships – Video Vignettes
Week four of the Summit highlighted various aspects of the Partnership through short videos of Partner reflections during meetings this past year.
Fall Partnership Summit – Week 3: “Listen Up!” Partner Podcasts & Podcast Recommendations
Week three of the Summit was all about listening to each other through podcasts.
