Good evening, Dr. Zentmeyer, Board Members, and Dr. Sovine.
As you know, I’m Roger Stenersen, Communications Director for Rising to Learn, and I’m pleased to be able to speak with you this
evening. As you know by now, our organization exists to provide succinct, meaningful synopses of Board meetings and actions taken by the elected Board to the public in Washington County. Our website includes summaries of Board meetings which are designed to be easily read and understood. We believe this mission will greatly enhance the degree to which the public can keep abreast of developments in
WCPS and how the elected Board responds to them. Accordingly, we invite members of the public to access our website at RisingtoLearn.com.
As American management writer Margaret Wheatly shared, “The world doesn't change one person at a time. It changes when networks of relationships form among people who share a common cause and vision of what's possible. This is good news for those of us intent on creating a positive future. Rather than worry about critical mass, our work is to foster critical connections.”
Rising to Learn intends to develop and expand those critical connections among members of the network of Washington County citizens who share the common cause and vision of seeing every student belong to a learning community which thoroughly develops their learning.
It is our belief that, in order to promote the sense of belonging to a learning community, every student needs to feel they are respected and valued – this is one key element of an inclusive learning culture. If that foundation is in place, the sky is the limit. If students do not feel respected, included and valued, the process of learning faces much stiffer resistance, and students who feel excluded will perform
significantly worse than they otherwise could.
Of course, not all students come to our schools with the same abilities, background knowledge, and skills. Our schools serve diverse populations ranging from at least one with one hundred percent poverty where students come to school hungry to some which serve students from among the county’s most economically advantaged neighborhoods. Accordingly, Rising to Learn holds that a diverse set of
strategies, materials and resources is needed to meet the needs of everyone; in order to maximize performance, school leaders and teachers must be empowered to implement a range of instructional approaches which address the particular needs of their students.
Rising to Learn looks forward to providing continuing input and feedback to the Board and to providing a way for interested parents to be involved in the broader scope of leading and guiding Washington County Public Schools.