Our Future Ready Alliance gives educators a network of peer and professional support for helping students become “future ready” and ensuring that they graduate with formal, viable plans to take their next steps after high school. Our approach to student planning is grounded in three questions that help kids imagine their futures—Who am I? Who do I want to be? How do I get there?
As in the past, participation in the Alliance is for teams of about four to eight educators, including at least one administrator. This year’s operating model includes two components—Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) and a workshop series for each PLC. The PLCs and workshops focus on three areas related to future readiness: fundamentals of future readiness, personalized learning, and culturally sustaining systems. Examples of possible content for each appear below.
Structure
Professional Learning Communities (PLCs): Our PLCs give educators opportunities for facilitated discussions addressing problems of practice they’re facing around their focus area. Each PLC will meet two times this year. Additionally, all PLCs will gather once or twice a year to learn from each other in discussions across topics.
Workshop Series: Two or three workshops related to each of the three focus areas will be offered this year. The workshops provide opportunities to learn and practice new content. Alliance participants should plan to attend the workshops related to their PLCs. Up to 25 additional educators from participating districts may attend each half-day workshop. Workshops will be virtual and provide a combination of asynchronous and synchronous resources from CPE staff and outside experts.
Three focus areas and content possibilities:
- Fundamentals of Future Readiness: implementing and tracking student plans/artifacts/ACT 158 plans/work-based learning opportunities
- Personalized Learning: reimagining established school structures and design (including, but not limited to, Project-Based Learning, Human-Centered Design, Universal Design for Learning, etc.)
- Culturally Sustaining Systems: fostering a sense of belonging in your school district, having difficult conversations, understanding and applying the PA culturally relevant and sustaining education competencies
Two Membership Opportunities
There are two ways to engage with the Alliance this year in our Alliance or Alliance+ memberships. Each offers a mixture of in-person and virtual sessions for the 2022-23 school year. Both options are available to districts based on our equitable pricing model.
Alliance Membership
- Future Ready Alliance Kickoff meeting
- Participation of 4-8 staff in at least one focus area PLC, which will meet two times throughout the school year
- Participation in one cross-PLC session meeting
- Participation in any and all focus area workshops
- Access to all recorded workshop content
Alliance+ Membership
All Alliance Membership benefits, plus:
- Up to 5 people to attend a general Project-Based Learning Training
- Up to 5 people to attend a general Human-Centered Design Training
- Business partnership development and support
Alliance+ members have the first opportunity to register before general trainings are open to non-Alliance members
