Dear community members and education advocates of Incline Village:

Your help is needed to guide our local education visioning, planning, and leadership decision support.

Please review this “State of Education” summary and most importantly COMPLETE THE SURVEY at the end:

Education Planning Overview and Survey

Thank you very much for your time and consideration!

- Mary

A N N O U N C I N G!                                                       (Click here for full graphic version of announcement)

Vision 2020 for Incline Education Action Team Meeting
Tuesday November 13
4:00 – 6:00 pm
Donald W. Reynolds Community Non-Profit Center – upstairs training room
(Parasol Foundation Building, 948 Incline Way)

Intention for our meeting:
To invent possibilities for Incline Village to become known as an Education Destination that
inspires and engages our community and others.
To create a shared vision for education in our area through 2020.

Agenda – Visioning & Planning Process:
Step 1: Desired Future Whole group – Participants share their personal visions for IV as and education destination. Education leaders share their vision & broad plans.

Step 2: Break-out groups generate aligned vision statements.

Step 3: Where are we today? Review current reality through data and perceptions

Step 4+:  Creative Tension -  Next meetings to identify gaps and generate solutions

Please come prepared to share your thoughts, hear new ones, and align around a shared vision. To review existing visions and assessment work to date, here are  related links and documents:

Vision 2020 organization, purpose, and process (June – Aug. 2012)

Vision 2020 Education Report summary (Sept. 2012)

WCSD Incline Schools K-12 Vision and Improvement Plan (Incline Great Schools Committee report, 2010):

WCSD Incline Schools K-12 Data Summit Book (FINAL 10-31-12)

Nevada Department of Education Reports of Accountability : charts that compare data across districts and schools

WCSD Superintendent Pedro Martinez’s Action Plan to 2017

Sierra Nevada College (private non-profit, four year)

Lake Tahoe School mission and philosophy (private K-8)

Tahoe Expedition Academy (private K-8)

E-Learning Cafe (non-profit, and proposed charter school)

Education Alliance of Washoe County

ALL interested community members are welcome and encouraged to attend this meeting – whether or not
you attended any prior meetings or are affiliated with a school.

INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. — As the front page story indicated in last week’s Bonanza (Nov. 1), a proposal for a NV-sponsored K-12 public charter school to be located in Incline Village was denied approval on Oct. 21. This proposal was first discussed in public at the Oct. 19 WCSD School Board candidates forum (though no members of the charter development team were present).

[The following was published in North Lake Tahoe Bonanza, Oct. 16, 2012 - includes both announcement of community learning and engagement events as well as a summary of an earlier meeting - interpreted through the eyes and ears of this author. ]  

In the next few weeks, Incline community members have several opportunities to learn about and participate in the development of our local education system:

-          Meet WCSD School Board candidates representing Incline Village schools: Wednesday Oct. 17, 7 to 9 in SNC TCES building; Lisa Ruggerio and Dale Richardson will describe how they propose to support Incline Village’s education excellence goals.

-          Attend the Data Summit for Incline WCSD schools on Wednesday October 24, 6 to 8pm at Hyatt Regency Ballroom (main building). WCSD staff will facilitate conversations around student and school performance trends for K-12 schools, including school climate survey results. Attendees will be encouraged to ask questions and provide input during discussions about WCSD Pathway targets and college readiness.

In November (date to be determined), the next community meeting of Vision 2020 for education will be held (co-chaired by Kathryn Kelly and Madylon Meiling). It will build upon the kick-off meeting held September 11 with our new WCSD area superintendent, JoEtta Gonzales, and area performance director, Kelly Humphreys. At that initial gathering in September, about fifteen educators and community members expressed their concerns and hopes for the future of education in our community. Though difficult to summarize the variety of ideas, opinions, and visions expressed in this limited space, I offer a few highlights that appeared to be broadly shared:

1.  Key strengths: we have a unique, somewhat fractured community of talented, resourceful, and passionate members who value high quality, exceptional education and see this as a key factor for community development in general.
2. Key opportunity: this community has the potential to work together more effectively in supporting all students’ individual needs; toward creating a nationally recognized center for outstanding educational opportunities for learning at all ages; an “education destination” that attracts new students, families, and businesses to our community.
3. Key initiatives and actions needed:
   • improve communications about positive news and developments and actions being taken to close gaps; more transparency and collaborative dialogue
   • effectively organize latent community talents and resources to create a refreshed, compelling, unique local education vision with clear goals
   • meet less, act more to achieve goals and vision in a timely way

The Data Summit on Oct. 24 is a great opportunity to learn where our public schools are now – the baseline, so to speak. After that, the Vision 2020 process aims to facilitate community collaboration to define where we want our education system to be in 1, 5 and 10 years. For those unable to attend these meetings – and those who can – go to the Education Forum at www.isaefforourkids.com/get-informed/ to view data, presentations, and meeting notes and also to engage in constructive dialogue that taps into and builds upon each of our wisdom, creativity, and skills to create an outstanding education system that makes us proud to live here.

As many communities around the country are realizing, public schools need deeper parent and community involvement in order to stay ahead of the tsunami of changes in student learning expectations and the tools available to achieve them (such as mobile and computing technologies for every student and teacher). If we don’t move quickly in understanding and meeting these needs, we’ll miss the boat that other communities have already boarded!

If you have questions or want to know how you can actively help with local education development, please contact me at mmeekalber@gmail.com.

Mary Alber has an MBA and a PhD in Transformative Learning and Change, formerly an information and technology consultant with Anderson Consulting and independent advisor to Boards of Directors of two conglomerates. She is an Incline Village resident with two children in local schools and a passion to develop excellent education opportunities for all 21st century students.

ANNOUNCING:

The full FINAL REPORT of the council for Vision 2020 process in Incline Village and Crystal Bay has been released:  Vision 2020 IVCB FINAL Report

The education specific findings and recommendations are on pages 25 to 29 or click here for Extract of  Vision 202 related to Education topics: Vision 2020 FINAL Report – Education Extract

What are the Next Steps?  We need all Education Advocates to help define the future of Education!

The Vision 2020 town hall held last Tuesday to prioritize future community-wide initiatives was not heavily attended by student-aged parents and educators. Whether due to late school night timing or the lack of interest in advancing education in our community, the education theme was prioritized as fourth out of the five areas being voted on.  Note that in this list of prioritized themes with some issues of each, the aspects relate to education are in bold:

1) Community Development : attract young families, declining population economic development, tourism, downtown identity, , etc.

2) Governance :  More local control and autonomy, need plenary form, central focus, local leadership and Local Action Committees to empower local planning and change relative to TRPA, State, County, and School District

3) Quality of Life : Improved ability to “age in place” and welcome wagon for new families

4) Education :  ensure greater continuity and alignment from elementary through high school and colleges like SNC (called “pK-16”), increase use of technology and blended learning, reduce out-migration of students, address bi-lingual performance gap, tap into “brain trust” of community and businesses for volunteer educators, leverage outdoor education opportunities, ensure small class sizes, raise graduation rate and academic performance for all students so whole system moves from being OK or “good” to great, outstanding, world class.

5) Mobility : improve connections between sidewalks for walking, hiking, biking, improve ADA accessibility and public transit, leverage water taxi

Allan Parker, part-time entrepreneurial professor at UNR, was the NRDC committee member who presented the education theme findings to those assembled.

Allan’s top recommendation is to create an “educational council made up of local community members to ‘build a platform for action’ and help ‘tap into funding’” (p. 27) while a subgroup could look at the “feasibility of working outside the WCSD or even creating a new school district.”  Such councils are comprised of residents, businesses, parents, administrators, and students and their tasks include completing a needs assessment for elementary through high school and determining funding needs.

The Education break-out group (about 15 people out of 160) further discussed key initiatives such as technology-enabled learning to meet more rigorous learning standards and goals and address each student’s unique aptitudes and passions and need for engagement in their learning. And how more engagement in learning leads to increased graduation rates and academic achievement for ALL students, and decreased remediation rates of IHS graduates attending UNR and TMCC.

Most participants felt that achieving such objectives will require more investment and autonomy than WCSD or NV government can provide at the moment. However, as Jim Clark reported in Bonanza last week (August 28), the new NV State Superintendent of Schools, James Guthrie, has met with some local education advocates and is open to proposals for more public school autonomy if the education advocates in the community can create a vision, plan and process for doing so.

WCSD’s new superintendent, Pedro Martinez, expressed similar encouragement at his Aug. 23 Town Hall when he advised us to move beyond the challenges we’ve faced in the past and organize around innovative plans to become a flagship K-16 system in the district and state. Both the WCSD and state leaders agree that we could be given greater independence if we demonstrate that we have the ability to orchestrate and harness community expertise and resources. This was also the overarching theme of all NRDC council findings: form Local Action Committees to plan for and implement change initiatives.

Are we ready and able as a community to build upon the work of the Incline Great Schools Committee and the WCSD Envision 2015 plans to collaboratively create a truly world-class education destination here in the NE Corner of Lake Tahoe?  Most importantly, are YOU able and willing to participate in its’ creation?

If so, PLEASE JOIN FOR 

The very FIRST meeting of the  

 Vision 2020 Education Action Team

Tuesday September 11

 7:00 – 9:00 pm

 Parasol Foundation – main floor

 ALL interested community members are welcome and encouraged to attend - whether or not you attended any assessment meetings or the Aug. 28 Vision 2020 Town Hall.

 Agenda:

• Review findings and recommendations related to education from the Vision 2020 community assessment process and the priority-setting Town Hall
• Establish education initiative priorities by attendee voting
• Form working groups to study top initiative areas and evaluate potential actions

Come prepared to dive into discussion by reviewing this education extract of the Vision 2020 Final Report:

 Vision 2020 FINAL Report – Education Extract

 If you want to participate but are unable to attend on Sept. 11, please vote for your priorities, ask questions, and engage in dialogue by clicking here to join the Vision 2020 Action Team discussion Topic.

Note:  A professional facilitator with a background in education will conduct the meeting.