Boston Fall Meeting – Call for Volunteers
2019 is special as SRI celebrates it’s 10th anniversary and we bring our annual conference to Boston: SRI Fall Meeting, November 7-9,2019!
We are seeking volunteers from the SRI community who have the passion and time to help us craft an engaging, inspiring and transformative experience for educators. The committees represent the core elements of the SRI Fall Meeting.
If you are interested, please email Deirdre Williams to let her know which planning committee you’d like to join. Interested in more than one? Outstanding! We could really use your help and talent!
Please email Deirdre (deirdre@schoolreforminitiative.org) with your interest and/or questions, by February 15, 2019.
Learn More About Joining Fall Meeting Planning Committees
Virtual Learning Opportunities
The final session of the Disrupting Inequities Webinar Series is tomorrow, and they are stand-alone sessions, so you still have a chance to join. The Facilitating Virtual Learning Communities sessions start tomorrow night, so this is your last reminder to register if you would like to join us. There are still open spots to join the single session on Leveraging Descriptive Feedback for Classroom Observation and the Culturally-Relevant Recruiting, Retention, and Responsibility series.
Disrupting Inequities Webinar Series – Discourse 2 Probing Questions
January 17, 2019 – 1pm CST
Attendees will be introduced to the concepts of Discourse 1 and Discourse 2 and use these to invite more radical discourse through the use of probing questions
Facilitating Virtual Learning Communities
January 17, 24, 31, February 7, 2019 – 8pm EST
Cost: $75 for the series for SRI affiliates; $115 for non-affiliates
Julie Moore and Natalie Berger will help participants in these sessions 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.
Leveraging Descriptive Feedback for Classroom Observations January 29, 2019 – 8pm EST
Cost: $25 for SRI affiliates; $35 for non-affiliates
Educators might not know what constitutes high-quality written feedback when some of them have never received it themselves. Join Thomas Van Soelen in this webinar and close the gaps in your practice as we explore, study, and write feedback of our own. Leave with an appetite to further develop skills needed to create an environment where teachers say, “Are you coming to my room today?” and they really mean it.
Culturally-Relevant Recruitment, Retention, and Responsibility Webinar
February 6; February 20; March 6, 2019 – 12:15PM Eastern
Cost: $95 for the series for SRI affiliates; $125 for non-affiliates
Join SRI and Dr. Liza Talusan (LT Coaching and Consulting, LLC) for a 3-part series on culturally relevant attitudes, behaviors, and actions that support recruitment, retention, and responsibility towards employees from institutionally underrepresented backgrounds.
- Part 1 will focus on why diversity, equity, and inclusion matters in the hiring process. We will go over the big questions that you and your institution should be asking itself about why you would engage in a culturally relevant process.
- Part 2 will focus on creating a more inclusive process that pays attention to the foundation of why we do this work together.
- Finally, Part 3 will explore the big questions around whether the culture, climate and behaviors of your institution are prepared to support and authentically engage with communities from institutionally underrepresented backgrounds.
Equity First Retreats
Join SRI this winter for two days of reflection and renewal in three fabulous locations across the country:
- Philadelphia – March 7-8 at the Friends Center, 1501 Cherry Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102
- Los Angeles – March 21-22 at California State University Dominguez Hills, 1000 E. Victoria St., Carson CA 90747
- Chicago – April 25 & 26 at University of Illinois at Chicago, Student Center East 750 S Halsted St, Chicago, IL 60607
Together we’ll reflect upon where we are in our equity journey, refresh our practice of collaboration and reflective discourse, and renew our fierce commitment to improving teaching and learning for every student. As always, we’ll learn from artifacts and issues that we’ll share from our professional practice, using protocols from School Reform Initiative. The SRI retreats, “Equity First,” will offer a host of opportunities to:
- gather, share, and reflect with others on what we’re learning as we continue to develop a practice centered on equity;
- build our capacity to access, engage, and sustain complex and challenging conversations about equity, identity, and implicit bias that lead to action;
- strengthen our resolve to work as agents of change, with formal or informal authority;
- refresh our perspective on the work we do in schools and districts, non-profit organizations, early childhood and post-secondary institutions — across and among cities, states, regions and on the international scene;
- use SRI tools and processes to remain true to and sustain our fierce commitment to making schools better places for every child.
NOTE: SRI welcomes any participant who wishes to attend, regardless of experience; however, “Equity First” is not designed to be an introduction to SRI’s work or a training session.
More Information and Registration
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,
Kari Thierer and Chris Jones
On behalf of School Reform Initiative
