Event Report: The #PANeedsTeachers Summit

 

To say that being part of the #PANeedsTeachers Summit was fulfilling would be a total understatement. The DCS team spent lots of time helping prep ahead of the day, but we truly owe so much of the event's success to our partners at Teach Plus Pennsylvania, The National Center for Education and The Economy, Churchill Media, Valiant 3 Communications, and Fitler Strategies. 

The Summit kicked off with presentations like the one from Dr. Ed Fuller, who shared numbers pinpointing not only the unsustainable decline in PA educators, but the dramatic effect it has on students. That was followed by a panel of teachers, superintendents, principals, and human resources professionals who put a face to those statistics by sharing real life experience, anecdotes, and daily life in their respective school districts. And that was just the agenda from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m …

Perhaps the most rewarding aspect of the Summit were the discussions encouraged and captured at each table. The practitioners, leaders, and education professionals strategically sprinkled throughout the room immediately jumped on the opportunity to discuss new ideas, share insightful experiences of their own, give examples of local initiatives that may not have worked as intended, and ultimately collaborated in producing holistic solutions to a very real crisis facing the teaching profession and, most importantly, the learners of PA. 

Among the top key education leaders and researchers in attendance: 

  • Kira Orange-Jones, CEO, Teach Plus 

  • Sharif El-Mekki, The Center for Black Educator Development

  • Dr. Ed Fuller, Penn State University

  • Dr. Richard Ingersoll, University of Pennsylvania

  • David Donaldson, Managing Partner, National Center for Grow Your Own

Check out some of the coverage of the event:

 
DCS TeamPA Needs Teachers, Teacher Shortage, Pennsylvania, Teach Plus, NCEE, Churchill Media, Valiant 3 Communications, Fitler Strategies, Summit, Education, Educators, Teachers, Students