Xavier hosting Strive Community Forum on Education

On Friday, June 26, 2009 at 8 a.m., at the Cintas Center on the Xavier University campus, the Community Building Institute will present a free Strive Community Forum on Education. The public is invited. To register, contact Nancy Hackett at 513-745-3264 or hackettn@xavier.edu.

Founded in 2006, Strive is a unique partnership spanning all sectors of Greater Cincinnati. It unites common providers around shared issues, goals, measurements and results, and then actively supports and strengthens strategies that work. Together, all work to help each child in the urban core succeed from birth through some form of college into a meaningful career. Strive is focused on home, school and community: the building blocks for successful students, productive citizens and thriving cities.

Community efforts to compile this information will end with the summit, an opportunity to discuss the importance of education in initiatives that seek to improve the quality of life in our area.

The Community Building Institute and the KnowledgeWorks Foundation partnered to implement the community engagement portion of the Strive initiative. Much work has been done in the region over the past several years on an agenda for change, in efforts such as:

1. Agenda 360: which seeks to transform the region by 2020 into a leading metropolitan region for talent, jobs and economic opportunity
2. GO Cincinnati: The “Growth and Opportunities” Project outlines recommendations of more than 200 community and business leaders around helping the city reposition its assets to attract businesses, employees and residents. This approach considered workforce development, transportation, neighborhood revitalization, and job attraction and retention
3. place matters: believes that strong schools, steady jobs, stable housing and safe neighborhoods are interconnected and is working with Avondale, Covington and Price Hill on a place-based investment project to improve the quality of life
4. CPS Strategic Plan: Building Futures spell out clearly that CPS will engage families in student learning, work with parent groups to increase parent involvement and provide more training opportunities for teachers and parents
5. Civic Index: a survey designed to measure a community’s perception of itself with regard to its public schools