Community Ecosystems & Partnerships

Can You Survive Poverty? The Game™: Experience the Barriers. Transform Your Leadership.

Verna Felder | Service Learning School District/The Urban School Transformation LLC
Charlene Cutler | Service Learning School District/The Urban School Transformation LLC

What happens when educational leaders must make the same impossible choices many students and families face every day? Can You Survive Poverty? The Game™ moves beyond conversation and places participants inside an immersive simulation where every decision has consequences—and one unexpected setback can change everything.

As participants navigate housing instability, transportation challenges, food insecurity, attendance expectations, communication barriers, and limited resources, they will experience how quickly circumstances beyond a family’s control can affect a student’s behavior, engagement, attendance, and academic success.

Through powerful reflection and strategic debriefing, participants will examine how school policies, leadership decisions, and community partnerships can either create additional barriers or become lifelines for families. They will leave with practical strategies to strengthen school-family-community partnerships, improve school culture, increase leadership responsiveness, and build more supportive, equity-centered systems around every student.

This is not a session you simply attend—it is an experience you will remember.

Session Outcomes:

At the end of our session, participants will be able to identify how poverty-related barriers impact student success, examine the role of school-family-community partnerships in supporting students, and apply practical strategies to build more responsive, equity-centered systems within their schools and organizations.

Effective Listening for Understanding, Trust, and Collaboration

Beth Kohler | Special Education Mediation Services

Our school communities are dealing with a lot of heavy topics these days.

We are so rooted in trying to problem solve, that when we speak with one another, we aren’t truly listening to what the other person is saying … instead we are trying to solve the problem we believe they are presenting. When people feel unheard, it leads to avoidable conflict and discord among schools, parents and school communities.

What if instead of rushing through every conversation like it’s a problem to solve, we learn to truly listen to one another? Effective school and parent relationships are built on trust. Listening for deep understanding; the “why” behind what is being said, is a powerful tool for building mutual understanding, strengthening relationships, and fostering collaboration.

In this session you will learn:

1. Why listening is so important
2. What effective listening is and its benefits
3. Barriers to listening
4. Strategies to improve listening
5. Practice and application

Session Outcomes

By the end of the session, participants will understand why listening is essential to effective communication, identify common barriers that interfere with listening, and apply practical strategies to improve their listening skills. Strengthening listening abilities can lead to stronger relationships, improved conflict resolution, enhanced learning and productivity, and a deeper sense of empathy and inclusion in both personal and professional environments.

Building Strong Industry Partnerships that Support Career-Connected Learning

Deborah Parizek | Henry Ford Learning Institute

We all need a clear vision and a guide to help us navigate toward our goals – especially when we are making the journey with others. In this engaging and interactive workshop for educators, industry partners and community members, you’ll develop your own “travel guide” that outlines your destination (strong career-connected opportunities), your recommended route (best practices), tourist traps (challenges to success) and experiences you won’t want to miss (milestones). You’ll leave with confidence and new tools and strategies, as well as access to additional resources from our online library and contacts for follow-on coaching.

Session Outcomes

• Describe their version of a strong partnership that supports community-connected learning.
• Identify practices they should eliminate, sustain and add to make progress toward that future state
• Use the protocol to collaborate with their own stakeholders
• Access session-experienced and additional resources through our online resource portal