Future Directions for the PrESS Network

Below, I have included the minutes from our 10-27 meeting, which discuss possible future directions for the network. Please feel free to share your feedback.

PrESS Network meeting
10-27-05

How can we involve our families?
It may be easier to involve our families once we identify service projects (e.g., Boys and Girls Club reading program) or events (e.g., The upcoming teach-in on Hurricane Katrina mentioned below) with which they can become involved. Meeting times probably aren’t the time to involve children or partners/spouses not involved with the Network.

How can we stay in tune theoretically?
We do need to take up another book. I would suggest Bill Ayers’ Teaching toward freedom or Kozol’s new book The Shame of the Nation.

How can we best be of service to the local and global community?
Globally, our work could take us to Jamaica—this year, we'll be travelling between June 18 and June 28

More locally,
Holding training meetings for families on how to advocate for children during SBARK and IEP meetings. If time, perhaps we can even plan to be present at some

Starting a mentoring program at a local school (Drew and Brent have already held some discussions about this at Fairdale)

Working with parents on how to talk about sexual involvement, sexually transmitted diseases with their children

Becoming involved with the slow-food movement, as mentioned at the end of Solnit’s text. Linking education and nutrition—talking about food’s relatedness to ADHD, behavior, health, etc. Challenging JCPS to provide healthy food for kids. Linking with local farmers and parents.

Building peripheral curricula that neatly fits around (and, then, broadens and deepens) the core content. Perhaps we could generally focus on elementary, middle, and high, building sample curricula, and/or we could at least begin sharing our lessons with each other on the blog (Is there a way to upload files to the blog, Jon?)

Although we did not talk about it last night, I’d be interested in working toward a Teach-In on NCLB, the standards movement, high-stakes testing, etc.

How can we grow our group to other constituencies?
Bring a student and/or another teacher to the next meeting

Allow the PrESS Network to act as a service laiason

Developing tailored service learning programs for schools, teachers, classes

Acting as a connecting point between stated community needs (e.g, Volunteers of America Study Buddies, Newton Learning, etc.) and teachers seeking out service learning experiences—perhaps even linking students from different schools together to work on common projects

Link up with the Breakthrough collaborative: http://www.summerbridge.org.

Providing PD to schools/teachers

Providing programs to teachers/classes on issues of multicultural education and social justice