community engagement

Good first step by the School board is coming up. At the end of this month, they are going to host forums to get public input on how to address budget deficits. The district has lost 2000 students in the last 4 years. That is 10 Million dollars in state funding, so indeed something needs to be done. Laying out the options before the community and getting people to invest in the decision is the right thing to do. This is going to be hard, but this will be a test of how much good will the district has right now.

Hopefully P** can inject some constructive dialogue into this process.

Almost 100

Ok, so the bad news is: we didn't have 100 people at our event last night.
the good news: WE PRACTICALLY HAD 100 PEOPLE AT OUR EVENT LAST NIGHT!!!!!

The really good news is the excitement at the event. Mikala gave a great talk last night talking about what to look for in schools, and how many good choices that we as parents in Pasadena have. I think that her primary thrust was that our kids will do well and that we as parents have the responsibility to look out for their well-being, wherever we send them to school. We need to be informed about the schools we are choosing among. We do that by gathering the quantitative data, then go look for ourselves to get the qualitative data. Where do we think our kids will have a good experience. Especially for our youngest kids, the socialization is most important.

Afterwards lots of good conversations were had and lots of excitement was floating around.

In a couple years, checking out the public school options is going to seem so obvious.

yyyeyeeeeaaaaoaooouuuuuwwww

could be some really good news coming down the pike for P** as an organization.

sorry to be secretive, but oh yeah!!!

Did I just say exciting times?

Some members had a meeting this morning with a certain foundation to discuss next steps for community engagement, and you can just see the changes in the way people are talking about the schools now. I think that a good bit of our messages are getting out there: "get parents to look for themselves"; "get parents to opt in"; etc.

The new partnership between the city and the district is going to be an important first step. It just changes the starting points of conversations now. Instead the natural stance being one of mistrust or distance, we can rhetorically start from "partnership between the city and district." That puts a certain relationship in people's minds, even if to this point, it is a baby step that each partner is taking to save $$$.

Great steps!

on the cusp

This is the first post, and it is an appropriate time to be starting. P** is really at an exciting time. We just had our first Fall event a week ago and had ~80 people show, and more importantly, everyone was jazzed. People are just so relieved to hear something good for a change. The best part is that the event featured parents talking honestly about their kids' schools.

We are also taking the first committing steps towards being a fully functioning non-profit. We have a preliminary fundraising plan. We are beginning to seek grants. We have identified our desired candidate for paid staff. We are just waiting to go.