Community Conversations About Education

CommunityConversations About Education is accepting applications to fund and organize local community conversations in fall 2013 through spring 2014. Application deadline is August 1, 2013. For 17 years Conversations About Education in Connecticut have been funded by the William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund.

• Past topics have included: 
• Bullying
• School Climate
• Skills for the 21st Century
• Parental Involvement
• School Safety

The conversations bring together diverse groups of local citizens to discuss issues of importance to them. 

Those interested in using the single topic: "Looking for Answers Together: How Should We Nurture Children to be Healthy and Make Better Choices?" may apply for a $1500 grant designed to get communities talking about parent access to information. They are seeking 10 communities to conduct conversations specific to this topic using an "Issues Guide" available at (http://www.discovery.wcgmf.org/lookingforanswerstogether). Five communities' conversations will occur this fall and part of ongoing research. The other five would be held in the spring of 2014 and after the data collection is completed. 

FOR MORE INFO: See http://www.ctconversations.org/

Communities organize the event themselves with technical assistance from Community Mediation consultants. Local sponsors from throughout Connecticut compete for first time awards of up to $2,500. The award covers the conversation expenses including a light supper or breakfast for 100. This large group of 100 divides into small, manageable discussion groups. The individual groups, led by a local, trained moderator and recorder team, all discuss a single education topic that may be created for a specific community issue or drawn from examples. 

WHO ATTENDS THESE CONVERSATIONS?

Planners work hard to bring together diverse groups of people. The richer the diversity, the richer the conversation. Each small group has a mixture of ages, stages in life, economic status, ethnicity, and gender. Parents and students attend, as do school administrators and teachers. But it is essential that the larger community be involved. So we see employers, non-parents, the clergy, home schoolers, college students and school dropouts. Everyone is represented. When this happens a broad spectrum of opinion emerges. It's an opportunity to see some new faces and hear some new voices speak out on important issues.