The East Region Adult Education 2020 Kickoff Summit was a great opportunity to gather input from our community. Members of the consortium, teachers, students, community partners, and business partners all came together to generate ideas and problem-solve as ERAE continues to grow. Opportunities to meet with such a diverse and experienced group are not easy to come by, so we remained focused and efficient, with participants engaging in a 20-minute break-out session of their choice that centered on one of six key topics. These topics included Transformative Data Culture, Partnership Engagement, Professional Development, Acceleration and Alignment, Workforce Engagement, and Student Engagement.

By working together and analyzing the data that was generated, we can begin to refine the work that we do every day. The work that we started at the Kickoff Summit is far from over. Next, we will create short-term teams that will continue to generate solutions. We are looking to the future to determine how we can meet the needs of our students and partners, including providing equitable education and workforce-ready prospective employees. This way, “Education That Works” will not simply be a slogan, but it will be the ethos that embodies everything we do in our community and beyond. The Kickoff Summit was an inspiring event and we are excited to begin implementing new solutions in 2018!