Congratulations to the graduates of this year’s Parent Leadership Institute. Over the course of six months the participants met with national policy makers, legal experts, educational experts and data analysts to get a complete picture of national educational trends and what they mean on a local level.

Each participant has been involved in the program since August 2014 when they attended the intensive PLI retreat. At the retreat they spent two full days getting up to speed on issues related to school discipline – how the IE2 contract works in Gwinnett County, the role of race in discipline disparity, the intersection of special education and discipline, as well as what other community members have done to make a difference. Additionally, the participants were assigned to teams and given a challenge project to work on for the length of the program.

Roxanne Francis, Toyasha Vaughn and Lynnette Ward comprised the team “Sources of Strength” and they were tasked with educating parents about the school to prison pipeline. They spent months developing their curricula and scheduling a training event. When the January snow storm threw a monkey-wrench in to their plans, they persevered with their project and instead created an online training session that can soon be found on YouTube.

For the first time, we had teen participants in Parent Leadership Institute. Team “Peace and Help in Schools” included Kayleen, Victoria  and adult member and GSToPP coordinator, Stephanie Wright. PHIS had the challenge of engaging youth in the school to prison pipeline discussion. These young women met with the leadership in their respective schools and negotiated opportunities to speak to their student bodies. Victoria scheduled a training session with approximately 80 scholars of Ivy Prep Academy in Norcross while Kayleen secured an opportunity to present before the drama club at Duluth High School. In both cases the audience was interested, asked many questions and were energized to pursue advocating for themselves and their friends.

Asked about the program, Lynnette Ward, Community Resources Director for Rainbow Village responded “This training gave me an insight into the school system that I had not been privy to prior. It’s interesting that it was provided by the community rather than the school system itself; it speaks volumes about the level of commitment Gwinnett SToPP brings to PLI training. I wish I had known about it sooner. I encourage all parents in Gwinnett County to participate.”

As we celebrate these graduates, Parent Leadership Institute is already turning its attention to the Fall and what we will do with our next class of passionate, committed parents and community leaders. We will have exciting news about changes to come shortly, so look back again soon! in the meantime, if you are interested, click here to register for next year’s class.