Tuesday, June 3rd

STEP attended the NC General Assembly Committee on Education meeting at 10 AM. We spoke with Chris Malone (NC House District 25) before the meeting to introduce our club. The Board of Education discussed two major bills. First, a bipartisan bill aimed to protect free speech was passed, partly in response to the censorship of a six-year-old student’s poem containing the word “God” in her school’s Veteran’s Day Assembly.  Later, a bill related to the discontinuation of Common Core in North Carolina was passed 27-16. For more information about this decision check out these articles from WUNC and WRAL.

S.T.E.P. is excited to have been present for such a critical conversation.

Monday, June 2nd 

S.T.E.P.  spent the morning helping out at Read and Feed! We cleaned, organized, and prepared mobile classrooms for the summer. Check out Read and Feed for more information about how you can help!

In the afternoon, Bryan Hassel, Co-Director of Public Impact, came to speak to S.T.E.P. Forward about the importance of strong leadership in school turnarounds.

Friday, May 30th 

On Friday, S.T.E.P. Forward spent the day on NC State meeting with members of the Friday Institute of Educational Innovation! We had the privilege of speaking with Glenn Kleiman (Executive Director), Trip Stallings (Director of Policy Research), Hiller Spires (Founding Director and Senior Research Fellow), and John Lee (Associate Professor of Social Studies Education at NC State). In addition, we toured the new Hunt Library at NC State. 

Thursday, May 29th

Today we had a Skype call with Meenoo Rami from the Science Leadership Academy in Pennsylvania. The conversation centered around global learning, leadership, and the value of “work worth doing.”
Check out Meenoo Rami’s book: THRIVE: 5 Ways to (Re)Invigorate Your Teaching (available on Amazon)
Follow her on twitter @MeenooRami 

In the afternoon, we had the privilege to visit and talk with teachers and students at the Montessori School of Raleigh Middle School campus.

Wednesday, May 28th

Today we gave a presentation at the Rotary Club in Raleigh to highlight the work Shifting the Education Paradigm has completed in the last three years. We also had a Skype call with Jose Vilson, an eighth-grade math teacher in the Inwood/Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City. We discussed the importance of teachers being “lead learners” in their classrooms and the impact of resource disparity on education.
Check out his book: This is Not a Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and Education (available on Amazon).
Follow Jose Vilson on twitter @TheJLV

Tuesday, May 27th 

Today is the first day of Discovery Term at Cary Academy! Discovery Term gives students the opportunity to spend two weeks in a student-led seminar of their choice. S.T.E.P. Forward was created by three rising seniors to explore education policy and reform.

Highlights of these next two weeks will include:

• Presenting to the CA community and Rotary Club of North Raleigh
• Skyping with Jose Vilson, Meenoo Rami, and Diana  Laufenberg
• Meeting with the Executive Director, Director of Policy Work, and Senior Research Fellow at the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at NC State 
• Engaging with Dr. Bryan Hassel, co-founder of Public Impact (a think tank that focuses on school turnaround)
• Cleaning and organizing mobile classrooms for Read and Feed
• Attending the NC General Assembly Committee on Education Meeting
• Touring the Montessori School of Raleigh and Hunt Library