Sterling Schools to host summit on preparing for college, careers
Registration for free event, to be held at Sauk, due Friday
STERLING – Educators at Sterling Public Schools don’t want local students to be caught in the middle.
The school district is teaming up with local regional offices of education and Sauk Valley Community College to host a summit on how the community can prepare students for college and careers.
The public is invited to attend the daylong 21st Century Learning Summit June 20 at the college.
A recent visit from “Caught in the Middle” author Richard Longworth inspired the school district to organize the event, said Cheryl Robinson, the district’s director of curriculum and instruction.
Longworth’s book suggests steps he believes Midwestern communities and agencies must take to keep their local economies thriving in an age when some small, independent companies struggle to survive.
Some small towns in the Midwest lose some of their best and brightest youths to bigger cities, while some young people who stay in smaller towns have trouble finding work, Longworth wrote in the book.
“That sparked the idea for the summit to bring everybody together and make sure kids in our community are prepared,” Robinson said.
The morning session will feature two keynote speakers: Jason Tyszko from Illinois Pathways, and Steven Kellner, director of professional learning at Wheeling High School.
lIlinois Pathways, funded by federal Race to the Top money, is a state-led education initiative designed to support college and career readiness for all students.
Kellner will discuss the nine pathways of study in place for students at his school, and how those pathways prepare students for the fields that they’re interested in, Robinson said.
In the afternoon, college students, local professionals and Sauk professors will share the skills they have found to be useful in college and careers.
The panel discussions will include Jentry Fane, Sauk student; Dan Robinson, student at Murray State University, Murray, Ky.; Larry Forristall, director of human resources at Frantz Manufacturing; Kim Gaffey, owner of Gaffey Home Nursing & Hospice; and Sauk professors Carrie Conderman, Amanda Eichman and Janet Matheney.
The event is coordinated through the Whiteside, Lee/Ogle and Jo Daviess counties’ regional offices of education and Sterling Public Schools.
To attend
The 21st Century Learning Summit will be held from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. June 20 at Sauk Valley Community College.
Admission is free; lunch will be provided.
Register at www.nwilroepd.org by Friday.
