AFT News / March 22, 2012
Community partnerships and commmunity schools were the focus of a panel discussion at the 3012 Celebration of Teaching and Learning in NYC on March 16. Atteneded by nearly 10,000 educators, the conference featured presentations on a wide variety of subjects including a panel discussion wtih AFT President Randi Weingarten, West Virginia Board of Education Vice President Gayle Manchin, McDowell County high school senior Trey Lockhart, and Annie Bogenschutz, the resource coordinator at a community school in Cincinnati.
Launched last December, Reconnecting McDowell brings more than 40 partners together on an ambitious plan to address the profound economic, education and health problems affecting students and families in the southern West Virginia county.
The public-private partnership is taking its lead from the residents of McDowell, Weingarten stressed. “What we’re trying to do in McDowell is aligned to what the community needs.”
Cincinnati’s Annie Bogenschutz, right, speaks at a panel discussion that included (L to R) Weingarten, West Va. Board of Ed. vice pres. Gayle Manchin and McDowell County student Trey Lockhart.
Manchin, the former first lady of West Virginia, said Reconnecting McDowell “has the power to change lives across West Virginia and elsewhere in rural America.”
While improving the quality of education in McDowell County is a major piece of the initiative, Manchin, Weingarten and others made it clear that the county and its residents need much more than that, including better housing, increased access to technology, improvements in the transportation system and good jobs.
“It’s about the classroom, but it’s also about what happens outside of the classroom,” Lockhart, the high school senior, said.
What’s happening in McDowell County is not unlike the community building that has coincided with the Community Learning Center initiative in Cincinnati, Bogenschutz noted. “There are common themes to what is needed in rural McDowell and what’s needed in urban Cincinnati.
As a result of the Community Learning Center initiative, most schools in the Ohio city are now community schools, Bogenschutz added, and offer programs in areas such as healthcare, parent engagement and outreach to volunteers from the community.
This is the third year the AFT has been a major sponsor of the annual conference, which is organized by WNET, a public broadcasting station serving the New York City metropolitan area. The New York State United Teachers and the United Federation of Teachers are also major sponsors. [Roger Glass/photos by Bruce Gilbert]