- Hello From Our Executive Director
- Reading Success Summit Recap
- Welcome, Wylie!
- Data Spotlight: Students with Disabilities
- Meet our newest Board Member, Amanda Garcia
- Cradle-to-Career Learning Opportunities
- Our Mission in Action
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Hello From Our Executive Director | |
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Hello Achieve,
I can hardly believe we are closing in on the end of the calendar year. It seems like yesterday that I joined the the team at Achieve Brown County. Time does fly.
As we approach the end of the calendar year, I can't help but reflect on some of the amazing things we've accomplished in partnership with all of YOU—our investors, stakeholders, collaborative action teams members, and community members! We'll have a full recap of this year's accomplishments next month in our December newsletter.
For now, I invite you to read on for a recap of our Reading Success Summit, to meet our new Director of Collaborative Action, to view a Data Spotlight, and to meet a new Board Member.
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Sincerely,
Sarah Beckman, MBA (she/her)
Executive Director l Achieve Brown County
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Reading Success Summit Recap | |
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On Wednesday, October 5, 2022, Achieve Brown County partnered with the Brown County Library and many supporting organizations to host a Reading Success Summit where nearly 200 community members attended to learn and convene around a reading proficiency crisis in our community.
County Executive, Troy Streckenbach, spoke about reading proficiency as a workforce and economic issue.
We heard about the importance of Getting Ready to Read from Jane Danowit, M.D. and Cory Mathieu, Ph.D. and how literacy starts at an early age through brain development with proper nutrition, exercise, and sleep, and socially, through reading the world by labeling, categorizing, describing, and matching.
Our own Evidence Based Decision Making Manager, Christian Roovers, highlighted county data including The State of Brown County 3rd Grade Reading Scores and 3rd Grade Equity Data. He provided highlights from the release of an Executive Summary and Full Report on community voice that was collected from nearly 130 parents, grandparents and guardians who are raising young readers in our community.
We closed the event with a Keynote Presentation from Scott Hall of the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce who spoke on building Kansas City’s workforce of tomorrow through kindergarten readiness, referencing data from heckmanequation.org and the Perry Preschool Study.
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What Comes Next?
We are meeting with community partners to discuss our Reading for the Future strategy and plan to create both short-term and long-term approaches to increase 3rd Grade reading proficiency in Brown County. While we can achieve many short-term wins, it will take a long-term focus and commitment of the whole community to truly bring about system changes and improve outcomes. We will rely on evidence and data to inform decisions, driven by the community’s collective input, with a focus on those we seek to serve together—ALL of our Brown County kids. Feedback from the Summit has been gathered and captured.
While we work with our Reading for the Future Strategy Team on short- and long-term plans, here are a few opportunities that will make a difference NOW (by no means an exhaustive list):
If you are interested in learning more about the Reading for the Future Strategy Team, please reach out to Wylie (contact information below).
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With the support of KHROME Agency, three videos were produced and premiered at the Summit. Each video had a unique theme and included comments from our Brown County Executive, Troy Streckenbach, Brown County Library Executive Director, Sarah Sugden, Community Member, Sister Melanie Maczka, and Achieve Brown County Executive Director, Sarah Beckman. The videos are now housed on ABC's website, here. | |
An Executive Summary and Full Report from listening sessions with parents, grandparents and guardians of kids in our community was released at the Summit and captured their experiences with raising young readers. This work was made possible by Waterford Upstart. The reports are now housed on ABC's website and can be viewed here. | |
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We are excited to announce that Sarah Wylie, who goes by "Wylie," has joined our staff as our Director of Collaborative Action. Wylie started on October 3, days ahead of our Reading Success Summit, and she has hit the ground running by meeting with community partners, learning our history and getting connected to our parent organization, StriveTogether.
As our Director of Collaborative Action, Wylie will be working with our Collaborative Action Teams, engaging with community partners, working to bring parent and youth voice into our work, and ensuring equity and advocacy remain at the forefront of our collaborative action process.
You can learn more about Wylie's background by clicking here. You are also welcome to reach out to her at anytime.
Email: swylie@achievebrowncounty.org l Phone: 920-593-1052
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Data Spotlight: Students with Disabilities | |
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Our Brown County at a Glance page provides a holistic view of the young people that make up Brown County. This data helps us make informed decisions and plan the way forward for Brown County.
Annually, we share the percentage of students with disabilities in Brown County public schools.
Disability Status indicates that a student has been reported by the school district as needing special education and/or related services. This covers the areas of autism, blind and visually impaired, deaf and hard of hearing, deafblind, emotional behavioral disabilities, intellectual disabilities, orthopedic impairment, other health impairment, significant developmental delay, speech or language impairments, specific learning disabilities, and traumatic brain injury.
In the 2020-2021 school year, 13.36% of students were reported by the school district as needing special education and/or related services.
Interact with this data set and others here!
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Meet our Newest Board Member, Amanda Garcia! | |
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Achieve Brown County is excited to welcome Amanda Garcia to our Board of Directors! Amanda is the Executive Director with Casa ALBA Melanie in Green Bay.
"I believe it takes everyone working in different sectors to create impactful and lasting change in our community, and I support long-term goals and solutions. Achieve Brown County encompasses that vision through their "cradle to career" approach and by having data-driven preferred outcomes for our area. Casa ALBA Melanie is also a long-time partner of Achieve Brown County, and we work collaboratively with many of the same initiatives and organizations that support ABC. I am excited to get involved in addressing the root causes of achievement gaps in our area."
Thanks for joining the mission of ABC, Amanda! We know you will help us do amazing things!
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Resources & Learning Opportunities | |
Each month we will share Resources & Learning Opportunities to support investors, partners and community members in their cradle-to-career work. If you have a resource or learning opportunity that you would like us to include in this section of our newsletter, please email us at info@achievebrowncounty.org. | |
Cradle-to-Career Resources | |
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Brown County Youth Risk Behavioral Survey (YRBS) results have been released for 2021. Sixty-three percent of Brown County high school students self reported on topics like safety, wellbeing, and high risk behaviors. See the full report here.
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Does your organization have SMART goals or targets? What about SMARTIE (I is Inclusion, E is Equity) goals or targets? Check out this newly released SMARTIE Targets Goal Setting Toolkit from StriveTogether for use in support of creating inclusive and equitable goals or targets for your organization, programs or initiatives.
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Cradle-to-Career Learning Opportunities | |
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StriveTogether Workshop: Identifying Metrics
December 1, 2022 from 1:00-2:30 p.m.
Learn about outcomes and different types of indicators, their purpose, and how to measure them. This workshop will help participants with the very basics of connecting mission to measures in place-based partnerships. This is a FREE workshop and is open to any of our partners as a benefit to ABC being part of the StriveTogether network. Register Here
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StriveTogether Workshop: Person, Role, System: Analyze Common Barriers to Action
December 7, 2022 from 1:00-2:30 p.m.
Learn a framework to dissect the interplay between the mental viewpoints of people as individuals, their responsibilities in their personal & professional roles, and the overall impact of their actions on a system during this workshop. This is a FREE workshop and is open to any of our partners as a benefit to ABC being part of the StriveTogether network. Register Here
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Our ABC Team and Board Member, Kim Desotell, attended our National Convening kickoff keynote by StriveTogether CEO, Jennifer Blatz, from the Office for Collective Impact on September 21. | |
Nearly 200 attendees are pictured here at the closing of our October 5 Reading Success Summit at the Resch Expo Center. Half of our Summit attendees pledged interest in committing time, financial resources or interest in communication related to the short-term and long-term strategy work ahead to increase reading proficiency for Brown County kids. | |
Our new Director of Collaborative Action and Reading Success VISTA enjoyed meeting with Mark Steuer, District 10 Alderperson in the City of Green Bay, on October 26 to talk about literacy following his attendance at the Reading Success Summit. | |
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Achieve Brown County is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization who's mission is to advance positive cradle-to-career outcomes for ALL young people in Brown County. We are funded through the generous support of individuals, businesses, foundations and grants. Our federal EIN number is 47-4100686 and all donations are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law. | | | | |
