Back from the Forums

Someone noticed that it's been a long time since I posted. I apologize for the absence. Sometimes on the School Committee there are long bursts of activity followed (thankfully) by slower times.

During most of this spring I have been busy organizing two city-wide forums in my capacity as chair of the School Committee subcommittee on the achievement gap. (Joe Grassi and Richard Harding are the other members.)

Both forums went very well thanks to a lot of help from a lot of people, including Marilyn Bradshaw and Pat Berry of the School Committee office. My greatest lesson was learning how much work it takes to launch any type of large-scale public engagement campaign. It's really a full-time job in itself.

The first forum on "Definitions" on April 28 attracted about 120 people. You can read my summary of the forum on the cpsd achievement gap webpage.

Shortly after, on May 12 came the Student Forum with Dr. Ronald Ferguson of the Harvard University Achievement Gap Initiative. A summary of the student forum will be appearing on the cpsd website as soon as I write it.

Briefly, I can tell you that there were 65 students in attendance -- a great turnout of teens for 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning. They ate donuts and offered some great suggestions for more personalization of education at the high school, for boosting the number of internships and for more involvement through similar assemblies in the future. CRLS Principal Chris Saheed was there (as were several deans and teachers) and told the students he was listening seriously to their suggestions. Feedback forms from the students were overwhelmingly positive.

If you have the time, you can watch both spring forums via webcast. A book is in the works about the entire series and will also be posted.

The final two achievement gap forums will take place this fall: a forum for parents on Saturday, Sept. 15 and a final wrap up forum looking toward future initiatives is scheduled for Saturday Oct. 13. I hope you can mark your calendars and join us.

A planning meeting for these last forums takes place Wed., June 6 at noon in the RSTA conference room of the high school. Folks can also email me any and all suggestions.