Diana R. Sieger is the president of the Grand Rapids Commmunity Foundation. For more information, visit Diana's President's pages or view her biography.

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President's Point of View: The Education Reform Initiative Moving Forward!

September 7, 2006

Today, the Grand Rapids Education Reform Initiative (ERI) is announcing, in conjunction with the county of Kent and a multitude of partners, the Kent School Services Network. This IS a big deal!

The ERI is an independent group of private and public partners committed to making sure that all children in the city of Grand Rapids and ultimately throughout Kent County have access to a quality education. Sounds pretty simple right? Nothing could be further from the truth! This is the most difficult work that we have ever done. The Grand Rapids Community Foundation (GRCF) is one of three foundations that sponsor this important effort. Our partners are the Steelcase Foundation and the Frey Foundation. In fact, the three foundation CEOs banded together six years ago and made a 20 year commitment in making our collective vision come to fruition.

One of the key recommendations from the ERI’s 2002 report to the community (Straight A Plan for Education Reform) after a leadership group researched other reform efforts around the country and examining the Grand Rapids Public Schools (GRPS) specifically, was to improve coordination among the myriad of services that support families and children within the walls of the school with a single point of contact.

Working with the various large entities of the county - network 180, Department of Human Services and the Health Department - along with three school systems, nonprofit agencies and a host of other services, Wendy Lewis Jackson the ERI Program Director relentlessly went after her dream of assuring that health and human services would be provided at various school sites. The Kent County Family and Children’s Coordinating Council (KCFCCC), a strong and positive community leadership organization reporting to the Kent County Board of Commissioners, played a significant role making this happen. Wendy Lewis Jackson is the chair of the School-Aged Committee of the Coordinating Council and that group tirelessly worked out the details of this effort for two solid years.

Many thanks and congratulations are in order - Matthew Van Zetten, the Management Analyst and coordinator of the KCFCCC who was able to broker this entire “deal” over the course of the last year, Assistant Administrators, Mary Swanson and Wayman Britt, played pivotal roles in assuring that this plan was going to see the light of day, the County administrator, Daryl Delabbio and the elected officials on the County Commission are among the leaders who paved the way for this to happen.

This is also a great example of truly a strong meshing of private and public partners. We all knew that no child should come to school without adequate health care, shelter, food or clothing and this provided the impetus to keep moving forward.

We applaud the launch and promise of the Kent School Services Network! Some of the outcomes we would like to accomplish are:

* We expect that teachers will have more time with their students - they won’t waste valuable instruction time trying to figure out who and what to do for kids with health or human service needs;
* We expect that parents will become more involved in the school and with their children when essential services are within reach at their local schools;
* We expect that children will be in school more days each year as plans are developed for curbing absences through the KSSN partners … and embedded in this is the dream of the Education Reform Initiative - raising the score relating to individual student achievement. If barriers are removed as much as humanly possible and provide community services to relieve stress, then the schools can do what they are designed to do - educate our most valuable resource: our children - our future.

Reform and system change doesn’t provide the sizzle that more short term projects and efforts offer as it is never fast, never easy and never done solo. The following organizations/entities are integral to this effort and we are very grateful for their dedication and hard work:

Kent County Health Department, the Kent County Department of Human Services, the county of Kent, the Kent Intermediate School District, network 180 (formerly Community Mental Health), Spectrum’s Health’s Healthier Communities, Grand Rapids Education Reform Initiative, United Way, Steelcase Foundation, Grand Rapids Community Foundation, the Grand Rapids Public Schools, Godfrey Lee School District and the Comstock Park School District.

The Community Foundation is granting a formidable six figure gift to this effort which will be announced at 6:00pm today at a press conference at Alger Middle School. Watch this space and watch for more to come as we are moving forward!