Last fall, the Collective Impact Project team hosted the first of a series of workshops to help our community identify to apply the collective impact approach to a complex social issue. The team partnered with Tamarack Institute to facilitate the process and help build local capacity. Five priority areas were considered: poverty reduction, employment & workforce development, community safety, healthy living, and education. Utilizing a “dotmacracy” voting process, education emerged with the most votes at the October 2017 workshop.
On June 5, 2018, we held a workshop that addressed both this Collective Impact as well as how the community can use Collective impact methods to provide excellent education to all our children from cradle to career. Utilizing the community’s transformation plan and metrics, third-grade reading emerged as the keystone outcome for ensuring every child is reading at or above grade level by the end of third grade.
Rockford Public Schools District 205, Alignment Rockford, and NICNE (Northern Illinois Center for Nonprofit Excellence) grade level reading and other statistics, current curriculum programs in place to improve outcomes in the classroom, and challenges related to student success. With the help of community members and other stakeholders, Sylvia Cheuy (Tamarack Institute) facilitated conversations about collaborative governance, community innovation, and community engagement. Click Here to view the PowerPoint presentation from the workshop. To learn more about this collective impact effort, please contact Alignment Rockford at admin@alignmentrockford.com.