Higher Ground will represent AZ at the 2024 IEL National Community Schools & Family Engagement Conference

The Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) will be hosting its National Community Schools and Family Engagement Conference at the end of the month, from May 29-31 in Atlanta. Higher GroundA Resource Center will sponsor and send over 30 people from our organization, district, school sites, and community stakeholders to the event. In total, 51 people will attend from Arizona. 

Our team is excited to be there representing the state!

Our experience at the event in past years

At this conference, what we’ve found is that practitioners unite around the same fundamental question: “How do we help youth become success-ready?”

The beauty of how we explore this question is that everyone brings their own unique perspective. At the event, we’ll deeply explore different perspectives — what policymakers, teachers, and administrators all think about how to ensure happy, healthy youth and families.

It’s less about having an answer and more about sitting down to listen, reflect, and discuss ideas.

Why the 2024 conference is meaningful to us

When Higher Ground first deployed our Restart SMART strategy in 2020, we were told that an organization as small as ours couldn’t do it — that there was no way we could be the lead agency for the entire state and be the community-based organization running community schools.

It was too much, we were told. Nonetheless, we were committed, and now we’re presenting!

How we’ve pushed past barriers

It’s through our data-powered strategic coaching technology. We’ve also built our own infrastructure through professional development. We currently operate 8 sites in Arizona across both Tucson and Chandler. But our work doesn’t stop there!

In addition to focusing on lobbying and advocacy, we are figuring out how to become the certifying body for Community Schools within the state, with a focus on figuring out how to inform the pipeline of practitioners that are available for this kind of work.

We’re no longer hearing that what we’re doing is impossible. We’re collecting data, informing outcomes, and finding ways to grow.

Most importantly, we need allyship at the national level

Higher Ground, at our beginning stages, is focused on where the need is greatest — in areas that correlate with a high degree of poverty and trauma. Some of the early metrics we observe include outcomes related to reducing violence and the upleveling of schools from failing to passing in performance.

We are building our model to the unique constraints, considerations, and demographic history of Arizona. Our state faces generational inequities and vulnerabilities that have carried over into our modern era. 

At this year’s conference, we’re looking to represent all connected stakeholders within the state of Arizona. Particularly, we are looking to advance the development of our framework for Advancing College and Career Ready Youth and Families in Arizona.

How to connect with us

1. Participate in our survey

If you’re a connected stakeholder in the state of Arizona (educational leader, administrator, teacher, a person in public health care or a nonprofit, a resident in the neighborhoods we serve, a business owner, etc), we are looking for your feedback in advance of the National Community Schools Conference at the end of the month. Ultimately, we are supporting our education system to support an evidenced-based framework of family and student support and engagement. 

We invite you to answer a few short survey questions on Pioneering Alignment and Momentum in Arizona. It will take less than 5 minutes of your time. Click here to take the survey.

2. Plan to attend one of our sessions at the conference

If you’re part of the IEL network and planning to attend the 2024 National Community Schools Conference, we welcome you to attend one of the four workshops that our team will be hosting:

Workshop 1 - Community and Leadership: The Journey of Safford K-8 from F to B with Restart SMART
Learn transformative strategies for school improvement: Collaborating with leadership, community engagement techniques, addressing non-academic needs in high-poverty areas, and replicating success in diverse settings.

The workshop will feature a panel discussion with the principal and superintendent of Safford K8, the site director, and the CEO of Higher Ground. Attendees will gain insights into collaboration between school leadership and external partners, and how this synergy drives transformation in high-poverty areas.

Workshop 2 - Overcoming Hurdles: Lessons from the Frontline of Community School Implementation
Learn from early challenges in community schools: trust-building in Indigenous areas, adapting to diversity in refugee-rich, multilingual schools, and reshaping the identity of a school shifting to a more diverse, local neighborhood.

The workshop will include case study analyses, panel discussions with principals and site directors, and interactive group activities. We'll explore each site's unique challenges and solutions such as trust-building exercises for Indigenous communities, language and cultural competence tools for refugee-rich schools, and strategies for transitioning schools' identities, including a magnet school transitioning to a diverse neighborhood school.

Workshop 3 - Pioneering Community Schools in Arizona: Strategies, Successes, and National Integration
Join a panel with Higher Ground, IEL, AIR, and others to explore Arizona's pioneering role in community schools. Learn about strategy, political challenges, research insights, and adapting to community needs for national application in community schools.

The workshop will include panel discussions, interactive Q&A sessions, and case study presentations to share experiences and insights from IEL, AIR, and Higher Ground as they pioneer Arizona's community schools. Discussion will include the history of legislative action in AZ regarding community schools, successful and unsuccessful attempts at sustainable funding, and current strategies amidst the political landscape.

3. Sync with our team on-site

Here are some of our teammates who will be on-site in Atlanta  at the end of May, along with that person’s primary goals and objectives:

• Jansen Azarias-Suzumoto, CEO, is facilitating a panel to explore Arizona's pioneering role in community schools. Join his session to learn about strategy, political challenges, research insights, and adapting to community needs for national application in community schooling.
  
  

• Stephanie Codd Anderson, CCO, wants to reconnect with people from across the US with whom she has Community Schools connections. She wants to learn from and share ideas with the committed practitioners of Community Schools. Stephanie is also facilitating a panel!
  
  

• Kat St. Pierre, Director of Communications, will be looking to connect with a broad range of Community Schools practitioners to learn from and capture their perspectives in short, made-for-social produced videos
  
  

• Kenneth Welch, Director of Outreach and District Partnerships, is attending with connection and collaboration in mind. He is looking to talk to those who do his job or have similar job descriptions from different states, regions, and organizations; to glean ideas on how they are reaching out and connecting with resources, data, tracking, and other relevant topics. 
   

• Rae Joseph, Grant Specialist & Project Coordinator, is looking to enhance collaborative leadership skills through networking and workshops. She wants to deepen her understanding of family engagement and community schools beyond HG's work.
  
  If you see us, reach out!

That’s not all!

After the event, we’ll be sure to report back and will reconnect with our Higher Ground community shortly. We’ll have a recap of our experiences in Atlanta in a few weeks. If you’ll be attending, please reach out — we look forward to seeing you there!