Tag: Matt Welch

City Connects at the National Catholic Educational Association Meeting

NCEAToday and tomorrow, City Connects will have be represented at the annual meeting of the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA) in Boston. Here are a couple of presentations to check out if you are attending the meeting:

  • Is Each and Every Catholic High School Graduate College and Career-Ready?

Thursday, April 12, 1:15-2:30pm, Room 207
Presenters: Patrice DiNatale and Norm Hursh, City Connects; John Marshall, Chaminade Julienne Catholic High School (Dayton, Ohio)

Preparing high school students to be college and career-ready is a considerable challenge for today’s secondary schools, including Catholic schools. In this presentation, school leaders discuss specific steps and strategies to introduce a proven program of optimized student support at the high school level that promotes students’ academic achievement, healthy development, and college and career readiness. Problem solving steps and strategies to address personnel, operational, and management systems to promote implementation will be discussed.

  • Optimized Student Support as a Core Function of Catholic Education

Friday, April 13, 10:45am-12pm, Hynes 107
Presenters: Mary E. Walsh, City Connects, and Matthew J. Welch, City Connects in Catholic Schools

This session describes an evidence-based approach to addressing the out-of-school factors that shape academic achievement and healthy development. We will detail the implementation and delivery of this approach within K-8 Catholic schools and will illustrate student and school outcome data. With this information we will then launch into a discussion about how to optimize student support at your school.

Pat DiNatale and Norm Hursh will also be presenting about City Connects this weekend at the National Office for School Counselor Advocacy (NOSCA) National Conference in Baltimore. This year’s theme is “Destination Equity;” Pat and Norm’s presentation is on Saturday, April 14.

For more information:

  • Follow NCEA on Twitter @NCEATalk; use #NCEA2012 for conference updates

Both/And: Improving Education in Schools and in the Community

City Connects team member Matthew Welch penned a thoughtful guest post on BC professor Andy Hargreaves‘ blog, “Both/And: Improving Education in Schools and in the Community,” in which he proposes a way to stop the cycle of blame in education reform. The achievement gap is not just the fault of teachers, nor can it be solely attributed to out-of-school factors like poverty. Schools and the communities are jointly implicated and both should be part of the solution.  Matt writes:

“As a conscientious public, we should do whatever we can to improve [schools], focusing special attention on their most important element: teachers. But we should also acknowledge that there are bigger issues that schools are not equipped to address. The good news is that much of that expertise is already there—often already paid for—in the communities surrounding schools.”

For more information:

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