The East Cleburne Community Center invited special guest to a collaboration conference Thursday, September 21st, at Cleburne High School.
Members from Cleburne ISD, the Marti Foundation, Hill College, Texas Workforce Commission and other community partners gathered at the Sting Bistro at CHS to discuss opportunities to collaborate with various stakeholders and agencies to improve the student education experience. The challenges students and educators are facing following pandemic distance learning, limited resources, unfunded mandates, student detachment and various changes resulting for pandemic closings were chief topics during the conference.
Keynote speaker, Arthur Hawkins, addressed the audience and challenged them to see the potential in every student and be prepared to go “All the Way and Then Some.” Hawkins has served as an educator, school administrator, Christian leadership mentor, coach, financial literacy facilitator, motivational speaker, and creator of a few non-profit organizations. Specifically, Hawkins is the founder of All the Way and Then Some, a mentoring group in the Greater Atlanta metropolitan area.
The ECCC is one of 21 awardees, out of 120 national applicants, to receive a grant from the National Partnership of Student Success to set the stage for community collaboration for improving the academic success for all students. The National Partnership for Student Success (NPSS), a diverse coalition that connects nonprofits, school districts, state and local education agencies, federal agencies, philanthropy, and national and community organizations to support increased access to and implementation of student support programs, provides technical assistance and research to enhance program effectiveness, and helps to recruit AmeriCorps members and volunteers to the effort. The core organization of the NPSS consists of the US Department of Education, AmeriCorps, the Biden Whitehouse, and the John Hopkins University Everyone Graduates Center. These institutions and agencies are coalescing to answer the call of President Joseph R. Biden for Americans to become tutors, mentors, success coaches, post-secondary transition coaches, and wraparound/integrated support providers. In pursuit of this goal, the NPSS focuses on these five key, evidence-based areas to support the needs of students both in and out of school.
Their belief is that all students deserve the opportunities and support they need to succeed drives their fortitude. Despite the heroic efforts of schools, educators, and families, the pandemic exacerbated educational and mental health challenges and widened long-standing inequities and opportunity gaps. This coalition works to reduce those negative factors and improve the student learning environment.
Read more about the work of the National Partnership for Student Success and how you can get involved by clicking here: partnershipstudentsuccess.org