Office of the State Superintendent of Education for the District of Columbia
Client
The Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) provides state-level policy direction and federal program oversight for the D.C. Public Schools.
Challenge
In 2008, the OSSE aimed to form the 21st Century Education Working Group as a long-term, cooperative venture between the OSSE and invested stakeholders throughout the Washington, D.C., area. The purpose of the group is to develop a basic understanding of the current needs of area employers and higher education experts so the OSSE and local school system can better prepare students for 21st century jobs and higher education.
Enter Reingold
The OSSE engaged Reingold to organize three community meetings to launch this effort and build a framework for the working group's ongoing conversation about the academic and skills gaps of D.C. students and potential approaches to filling them. Reingold managed every aspect of these critical events. We worked with the OSSE to identify keynote speakers and enlisted former West Virginia Governor Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education, and Marc Tucker, founder, president, and CEO of the National Center on Education and the Economy. We also identified guests from the higher education, business, educator, and parent communities, and drafted and disseminated custom-designed invitation letters and emails to encourage their participation. For each meeting, we developed the agenda, provided facilitation, organized logistics, and wrote and disseminated a report highlighting key findings from the discussion.
Results
Reingold successfully engaged thought leaders throughout Washington in this dialogue with the OSSE, and our findings report provided a foundation for the ongoing work of the 21st Century Education Working Group.