This school year, we are excited to launch a new project with support from the Richard King Mellon Foundation that will bring together six districts in a leadership and learning cohort.
In partnership with the Consortium, the districts – Burrell, Cornell, Deer Lakes, Greensburg Salem, Jeanette City and Woodland Hills – will undertake work in one or more of three areas of focus, including school redesign, strengthened family engagement, and improvements in career readiness programming.
Within the cohort, participating districts will learn together and from each other, share best practices and lessons learned. The Consortium will provide facilitation, coaching, and partnerships to support the educator teams as they design and implement work across the focus areas.
“We’re thrilled to be leading this initiative,” said the Consortium’s Executive Director Mary Kay Babyak. “We’re taking some time upfront for the districts to share ideas and to discover the support they’ll need within the focus areas. We’ll be bringing them resources like current research and national expertise, and they’ll be collaborating as a network to share their own best practices and support each other in addressing challenges.”
When the Richard King Mellon Foundation funded the project last spring, Director Sam Reiman said, “This is one of the first grants funded under the new Economic Mobility program in the Foundation’s new 10-year Strategic Plan. The Foundation is pleased to support this action-oriented collaboration to help students succeed today so they can thrive in adulthood tomorrow.”
