Eight Warsaw Schools Honored By Project Tomorrow For Tapping Into Students' Ideas
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Staff Report-
Project Tomorrow, the national education nonprofit group, announced the selection of eight Warsaw Community Schools as Speak Up 200 schools. Speak Up 200 schools are a collection of top kindergarten to 12th-grade schools in the country that encourage and involve authentic student, parent and teacher ideas and views in the education planning and decision-making. Warsaw Community Schools received this national distinction from the 35,000 schools nationwide that have participated in the annual Speak Up surveys since 2003. More than 466,000 K-12 students, teachers, administrators and parents, representing 8,020 public, private and charter schools from all around the country participated in the Speak Up 2012 surveys which were open for participation in fall 2012. More than 5,500 Warsaw Community Schools students, educators and parents participated in Speak Up 2012. Across the nation, Speak Up 200 schools are using the data from the online Speak Up surveys to develop strategic plans, make budgeting decisions, enhance their curriculum, and determine professional development needs. “At Warsaw Community Schools, we are using the Speak Up data to inform our planning process for future technology investments,” said Brad Hagg, chief technology officer, WCS. In making the announcement, Julie Evans, CEO of Project Tomorrow, noted, “We are very encouraged to know that some of the most innovative districts in our country are using the ideas of students as well as parents and teachers as input into their decision-making. By empowering student voices, the 2012 Speak Up 200 schools provide the education community with powerful examples of the value of including stakeholders in these important discussions around education transformation and school improvement.” As designated Speak Up 200 schools, Edgewood Middle School, Eisenhower Elementary School, Jefferson Elementary School, Lakeview Middle School, Leesburg Elementary School, Madison Elementary School, Warsaw Community High School, and Washington Elementary School will be prominently featured on the Project Tomorrow website at www.tomorrow.org/speakup/speakup_200.html and receive special recognition from Project Tomorrow including a unique Speak Up 200 logo to use on school and district websites. Moreover, Project Tomorrow will promote WCS’s distinction to Congressional representative and state governor to demonstrate the power of educational innovation at the local level. Project Tomorrow has tapped into the expertise of this year’s Speak Up 200 schools to develop new questions for Speak Up 2013, which will be open for student, educator, parent, administrator input and more at www.tomorrow.org/speakup/ Oct. 2. Additionally, their success stories are being shared with WCS’s partners and national policy organizations to inform national and regional education reform efforts.
