State of the Organization
April 30, 2020 – 6pm EST
Over the last two months many organizations have experienced tremendous economic hardship. Leaders across the country have been reflecting on what it means to be an adaptive leader to keep their organizations surviving particularly during times of crisis. Of course, we want our organizations to do more than survive, but during such unparalleled times, survival suggests that an organization is resilient enough to sustain itself past this crisis. As you might imagine, SRI is feeling the impact of this pandemic economically. Collectively, we have seen the benefits in our classrooms, schools, districts, and communities from engaging in work using SRI’s tools, processes, and the wisdom from fellow affiliates. Likewise, it will take our collective wisdom to see our organization through this economic downturn. Please join the Executive Director April 30, 2020 at 6pm Eastern to hear the progress and challenges SRI is currently experiencing. This meeting is an opportunity to ask questions, and to begin putting our heads together to dialogue about the ways in which we can realize opportunity for SRI amid crisis.
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Facilitating Virtual Learning Communities Webinar
Starts Next Week! – April 28, 30, May 5, 7, 2020 – 7-8:30pm EST
Participants in these sessions will engage in a variety of SRI protocols and practices to explore how SRI critical friendship can foster and sustain transformational learning communities in a virtual space. Ample time will be reserved to debrief the virtual experience, examine implications for our work, and develop next steps in using virtual transformational learning communities to engage more teachers and students in SRI’s Mission and Guiding Principles.
These sessions tend to fill up, and there are only a few spaces left.
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What’s a Coach To Do?! A Conversation About Coaching During Difficult Times
May 7, 2020 – 4-5pm EST
Join Rita Bean and Jacy Ippolito, authors of Cultivating Coaching Mindsets, for an informal webinar session on Tuesday, May 7, 2020, from 4:00-5:00 p.m. EST. During the discussion, Rita and Jacy will share their thoughts and experiences about coaching in this time of crisis. Participants will be invited to raise questions, share their experiences, and describe ways in which they are fulfilling their own roles in this unprecedented time. Several of Rita and Jacy’s colleagues, currently serving in coaching roles, will also share their stories of success and challenge. We hope this session will provide a forum for learning from and with each other.
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Equity First Virtual Institute
Online May 14-15, 2020
We moved our Equity Retreat Online!
This two-day institute deepens the “Who am I?” identity work from the Personal Awareness Institute by exploring how our identities influence the way we walk in, interact with others and make sense of the world. As a reflective learning group, we address several key questions: What do we mean by power and privilege? Do we all have some level of privilege? How can I identify unintended harm I’ve created in the past due to my privilege, and determine what I would do differently to make sure that I don’t make those mistakes again? With an explicit focus on equity, participants gain skills for using SRI tools and processes to:
- Participate in reflective conversations about equity;
- Successfully manage dissonance, disequilibrium and anxiety in a reflective learning group; and
- Make explicit connections among educational practice, student learning & barriers to educational equity.
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Virtual Connections
Apologies for having to skip this week, we will see you next Wednesday.
The last few weeks have been unprecedented in our generation. While mass closures of schools and social distancing have brought us all a range of emotions, new routines, and change, this pandemic has not cancelled relationships and the need to put our community first. School Reform Initiative will be facilitating “Virtual Connections” for our community on Wednesdays. We love connections as a protocol because all we have to do is prepare ourselves to lean in to each other, there’s nothing to prepare and no other expectations. The rules are simple – speak if you want to speak, don’t speak if you don’t want to speak, and speak only once until everyone has had an opportunity to speak. We’re hoping that if everyone connects for 5 minutes sharing whatever is on their mind that we’ll be able to provide a virtual community because we are not alone in our efforts to balance supporting our students, creating virtual learning for potentially the first time, homeschooling our own children, feeling isolated or anxious, and so many other realities. Remember, there is power in community. We are stronger together and while we may not be able to be in social gatherings for a while, join Deirdre for “Virtual Connections” Wednesdays at 10am Central. We’ll put an hour on the clock and connections will be open. Join us via Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/526645533
#10forSRI
Our goal for 2020 is to help educators remember why they became educators, and to do whatever we can to not only help them to ‘feel’ supported, but to actually ‘be’ supported, and work together to create the schools our students deserve. I hope you will join me and continue to support SRI!
SRI is fiercely committed to educational equity and excellence, and we cannot do this work without your support!
Thank you for your commitment to students, families and communities!
Do you have news to share? Interesting things happening in your area? Please let us know so we can share with our community! Email Chris Jones, chris@schoolreforminitiative.org.
Thank you,
Deirdre Williams and Chris Jones
On behalf of School Reform Initiative
