The weeks now are flying by. With the strategic planning retreat on the horizon, the amount of work I have is steadily increasing. I’m also finding that I have more responsibilities. For example, on Monday (10/28), I attended a Ready Schools Team meeting, and reported back to the small workgroup about research pertaining to the academic benefits of having smaller class sizes (according to the Tennessee STAR Experiment, advantages were minimal and seemed to fade after the third grade; more beneficial would be improving the quality of teaching).
I’m also handling more responsibilities internally with Redwood City 2020. I’ve been emailing the core partners for their own strategic plans and needs assessments, in order to get an idea of our partners’ priorities. Eventually, I will group all of their priorities under common goals (health, safety, academics), so we can see what areas our partners are focusing on. This will tell us at Redwood City 2020 what we are doing a good job supporting, and what we can do better in the future. The partners’ needs assessments will give us a better idea of why our partners chose the goals they chose, and will then inform our own goals moving forward.
The theme, then, for this week is alignment. As a community collaborative, it is important that we are in alignment with all of our partners. While Redwood City 2020 wants to have agency in the direction it takes in the next 4-6 years, being in line with our partners’ interests is essential in ensuring that everyone can work together. This is example of alignment in collaboration is extremely valuable for my work moving forward, both in my role as a fellow and beyond.
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