More than 50 executives from Eastside Pathways partner organizations gathered together at WISC Rainier Room for the third [and last] All-Partner Meeting for 2017 to look back at the year’s work, share successes, and explore the way forward.
We were privileged to have Dr. Ivan Duran, superintended of the Bellevue School District attend the meeting and share his thoughts.
He spoke about the district’s focus on having the right resources to “support our students so that they can find success on a daily basis.” He shared that he was “huge fan of collective impact” having had some experience with that in Dallas. He talked about the value of getting people to the table to discuss the challenges that some students experience, urged them to continue having such conversations, and appreciated and acknowledged their contribution: “Thank you all for the work you are doing every day.”
Following Dr. Duran’s energizing address, it was time to have some fun with data.
Kelly Jones, data office at Eastside Pathways, introduced the audience to mentimenter, an online quiz tool that got them thinking about whether they could identify the data around those core indicators. As an incentive, Kelly offered a USB flash drive-in-a-card to the person who clicked the correct answer the fastest. As the goals rolled by on the mentimeter, the audience was ready, fingers poised on their mobiles, to click what they thought was the right answer. They did get most of the answers [view the goals and corresponding indicators] and the winner of the ‘fastest finger’ was Siri Bleisner, Board Member at Lake Washington School District.
The spotlight then moved to a success story – The Promotores Project.
Following the presentation of the Latino Community Survey Summary 2017 to the partners in June, a task force had been set up to look at next steps. Stephanie Cherrington, Executive Director of Eastside Pathways, urged partner executives to share the survey and recommendations within their organization, host discussions, and utilize the Promotores Task Force for any help.
She invited Carlos, a promotor to share his experience, and this is what he said:
“As a Hispanic male, I think it’s amazing that a survey has been proposed, created, and the results and summary are being shared now. We have the opportunity to present it to you in a way that you can start having conversations about whether or not this is a community that you are serving and are you it serving well. The community has been asked in their native language whether or not they are being served well and they’ve responded honestly. We spent a lot of time asking the question – ‘what is it that we need to do?’ And we’ve done what we need to do – we needed to listen. So I hope you join us on the journey.”
Finally, looking ahead, the Partner Leadership Committee is regrouping and exploring its next steps to lead the partnership and prepare the strategic plan for 2018.
The partnership will continue its work, using their diverse strengths and skills, to shape systems that support every child, step by step, from cradle to career.
Article written by Sujata Agrawal, communications manager at Eastside Pathways