Leaning into Community-Wide Learning: What It Takes and Where It’s Happening!

This GLR Learning Tuesdays webinar, Leaning Into Community-Wide Learning: What It Takes and Where It’s Happening!, was a follow-on conversation to our April 18 session, Building a Parent-Centered Ecosystem for Out-of-School Learning, which focused on program models that support learning in everyday places and spaces. The May 2 session shifted to a focus on community-wide coordinated systems that create networked learning opportunities throughout a city, county or region. We had the chance to learn about the partnerships and collaboration that give children the chance to learn anywhere, everywhere and all the time in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Tacoma and Pierce County, Washington; and the Suncoast, four-county region in Florida. Three leaders of “backbone” organizations coordinating multiple partners and initiatives in these communities helped us get a clear picture of what community-wide learning looks like on the ground. Jenny Bogoni of Read By 4^th at the Free Library of Philadelphia shared: 

What we are doing to transform our public spaces is to make sure our communities are activated to support learning everywhere families go. And then in our public system space, we’re looking at making sure our systems are designed in just and equitable ways and programs are aligned with the latest research and science around how a child learns to read. Powering all of that is the work of our backbone office of Read By 4^th. So when we are trying to pull these things together, we’re thinking about, how are we building partnerships and convening people across these areas?

After inspirational opening remarks by CGLR’s Auerbach-Berger Senior Fellow and leader of the Everyday Places and Spaces Initiative Siobhan O’Loughlin Reardon, moderator Bonnie Howard of CGLR engaged Bogoni in an informative discussion with Tanya Durand of Greentrike in Tacoma/Pierce County, Washington, and Beth Duda of Suncoast Campaign for Grade-Level Reading and The Patterson Foundation in Florida. They discussed efforts to enlist various sectors throughout their communities, such as transportation, parks and more, in the work to make learning happen everywhere a child may go throughout the day.

Howard then engaged a panel of philanthropic leaders who expressed why and how they are investing in community-wide efforts to expand playful and informal learning-rich environments to ensure kids continue to learn during the 80% of their time not spent in school. Gregg Behr of Remake Learning and the Grable Foundation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, expressed how a foundation needs to be innovative and take risks to best support successful community-wide learning efforts:

One of the things that we’ve learned over the years that’s been incredibly helpful, and is supported by our trustees in brilliant ways, is support for funds that allow organizations to take little bets. Maybe allow for a museum to work together with an out-of-school time organization in a new way, or an early learning center to work with a design firm in a new way. Although some will fail, there will be some incredible gems among these little bets that will then start to be the seeds for the spread of this sensibility around everyday places and spaces. Discretionary support for those little bets…is really critical from the funding side.