September/October 2022

1. Greetings from Sarah Beckman, CEO of Achieve Brown County
2. Reading Success Summit registration is closing soon
3. New AmeriCorps VISTA opportunities
4. Community Listening Sessions
5. Graduation Task Force Annual Meeting
6. New Brown County at a Glance data
7. Welcome to our newest Board Member
8. Thank you to our departing Board Members

Register Today!

Don't forget to register for the October 5th Reading Success Summit! In Brown County, reading proficiency levels have been slowly declining, even before the COVID-19 pandemic. We need all of our community members to join us as we co-create a future of stronger readers for Brown County.

Reading Success affects EVERYONE!

Reading success means...

• Higher graduation rates
• More active citizens
• A stronger workforce and economy
• Lower crime rates
• A better Brown County

Want to join the amazing work happening at Achieve Brown County? Are you looking for an exciting opportunity to make an impact in your community? Join us as an AmeriCorps VISTA! The open VISTA roles are - 

• Community Voice VISTA
• Data Analyst VISTA
• Data Communication VISTA
• Resource Development VISTA
• Volunteer Coordinator VISTA

Learn more about the roles and how to apply on our careers page!

Have you seen us around? We have been all over Brown County collecting stories from parents of young readers! This is one of the key components of our Reading Success Summit. Connecting to the community is extremely important to us as we work to gather community members' perspectives around developing early readers. These sessions help us to better understand barriers to reading proficiency through stories.

These stories will inform our October 5th Reading Success Summit! Recently, we have been at the Oneida Education Center, Howe Elementary Community School, The Back to School Store, Integrated Community Solutions, and other places around Brown County! Thank you to all the community members who have participated in Community Listening Sessions!

Graduation Task Force Annual Meeting

Last month we were joined by our amazing partners The Boys & Girls Club of Greater Green Bay, the YMCA, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northeast Wisconsin, the Green Bay Area Public School District, Howard-Suamico School District, Ashwaubenon School District, Denmark School District, and GRACE School District for our Annual Graduation Task Force meeting. 

The Graduation Task Force provides additional mentoring support to students in Brown County at risk of dropping out of high school. In Brown County, there are 12,000 6th - 9th-graders. Of those students over 23% are at moderate or high risk of dropping out of high school. That's 2,856 students at risk.

This school year our mentoring organizations have set the goal to serve over 425 students who are at risk of dropping out. We are excited to see the continued work of this amazing Community Action Team in Year 5! It was exciting to hear about all the amazing things happening within these mentoring organizations!

New Brown County at a Glance Data: Students by Race

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.

A new data set on Black Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) in Brown County schools is now available! Green Bay Area Public Schools had the highest percentage of BIPOC students in 2020-2021 at 58.45%. Ashwaubenon had the second highest percentage at 24.8% and West De Pere had the third highest percentage of BIPOC students at 21.95%.

Interact with this data and more here!

Welcome, Vicki Bayer!

Achieve Brown County is excited to welcome Vicki Bayer to our Board of Directors! Vicki is currently serving as the Interim Superintendent of Green Bay Area Public Schools.

"I have had the pleasure of serving with the Achieve Brown County (ABC) team with the graduation task force work since its inception. The goal of every child succeeding in school is a mission of the Green Bay Area Public School District, so it was an easy decision to join forces with ABC to support our work."

Thanks for joining the mission of ABC Vicki! We know you will help us do amazing things!

Thank you to our Departing Board Members

The members of Achieve Brown County’s Board of Directors represent the collective commitment that organizations from all sectors across the community have made to building a truly equitable Brown County. These individuals provided strategic oversight and strong leadership to guide Achieve Brown County in all aspects of its work. We want to thank these departing members for their amazing service to Brown County!

Mohammed Bey, NWTC

Steve Murley, Green Bay Area Public Schools

Luis Franco, Green Bay Area Public Schools

Ed Policy, Green Bay Packers

Luke Goral, Denmark School District

Kurt Weyers, Ashwaubenon School District

Sr. Melanie Matzka, Casa ALBA Melanie