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Welcome To Proclaiming Public Education
 June 2021
Dear Friends,
A year ago we held our first Pastors for NC Children's Board meeting to begin the work of connecting advocates and faith leaders across NC who care about public education and want to support NC's public schools. It has been an amazing first year despite how Covid-19 altered plans and kept us physically distant. We are grateful for all our new newsletter subscribers and contacts! Growing our newsletter helps us with future grant opportunities and expanding our reach across NC. Thank you and share this email with your friends and colleagues. Better yet--encourage them to subscribe today!

If you'd like to learn more about PNCC and how you might get involved, schedule a call with Director Rev. Suzanne Miller or email her at PastorsForNCchildren@gmail.com. 

JOIN THE CONVERSATION!

Wednesday, June 23 @ 9am-- Ministry Leaders Gatherings
We host a Ministry Leaders Gathering on the 4th Wednesday of the Month from 9-10am for any clergy, faith leaders, education advocates, or anyone interested in learning more about PNCC. We have a time to check in with each other, share announcements and opportunities for advocacy, and upcoming events. It's an informal gathering, so grab a cup of coffee and join us! Invite your colleagues and friends as well. Register for the Zoom gathering here. 
 

#LeadWithLeandro UPDATES
From our friends at Public Schools First NC:

Earlier this week, Judge Lee ordered the state of North Carolina to fully implement the previously issued Leandro Comprehensive Remedial Plan. You can find the full plan here. The order is a welcome and extremely important development in this long running case. 

Among other things, the order directs the state to “remedy continuing constitutional violations” and provide a sound basic education to all North Carolina children by following directives in the remedial plan. The recently issued order also mentions that since impending federal money distributions are non recurring, they can not be used to meet this order. 

 There is also language suggesting that with failure to comply "it will be the duty of this court to enter a judgment.” Important upcoming dates set forth are August 6, 2021, the date by which the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and the NC State Board of Education are to submit their report regarding their progress, a hearing to address issues raised in the August report, scheduled for Sept 8, 2021, and quarterly reports starting on or before Oct 31, 2021 regarding status and progress made towards benchmarks. 

Read the statement released by Every Child NC on this important development here . Also, if you missed this week's Leandro Town Hall, tune in here. Stay tuned for upcoming developments. 

Be A Leandro Advocate
 

Take 2 minutes to watch this video from our Every Child NC Partners about the needs of students in NC and share it with your networks. This is one of 8 new videos that were recently released.

Jaileea's story is echoed across our state as students are stuck in opportunity gaps, and schools lack the funding and resources to fill in these gaps. Internships, clubs, extracurricular activities--these are things that enhance students' school experience, competitive advantage, and future ambitions. Our students deserve better.  As NC community members, we need NC to invest in all our children's future. PNCC is here to help connect the faith community to the systemic changes needed. PNCC is a founding partner in the the #LeadWithLeandro work that Every Child NC is working on. This Coalition is encouraging NC to enact the Leandro v. NC Court Case's West Ed Report recommendations. Not familiar with "Leandro"? Learn more here: EveryChildNC.org. Learn more about the issues surrounding the Leandro case by watching these short videos from Every Child NC. 

PNCC IN THE NEWS
PNCC Executive Director The Rev. Suzanne Miller participated in a Press Conference in Louisburg, NC on Saturday, June 12 calling for the Legislature to prioritize students in their budget process. Simultaneously Rev. Antonio Blow and Rev. Karen Ware Jackson spoke in Greenville, NC on the same topic. Here are some links to the News Coverage of these events:
PNCC's full statement on the need to Prioritize Students can be found here. 


Willing to Speak at a Press Conference?

PNCC has opportunities to speak at various press conferences across NC around supporting public schools and the students they serve. We provide you support and the statement to read for these opportunities. The opportunities often come together very quickly, so having a list of potential speakers is helpful. Iif you'd like to be on the list to call for possible speaking opportunities in your area, please let Suzanne know! 

LEGISLATIVE LEDGER

We are STILL waiting on the General Assembly Budget for 2021-2023. They've had since January to get it together. It starts July 1, 2021, but we have not seen any documents to show what will be funded. Schools need the budget to plan for schools to open this summer and fall. Once the Legislature's Budget is presented, it still will take a few weeks for negotiations and to get it passed. Time is of the essence!

Contact your NC House Representatives and NC Senators to ask them to #PrioritizeStudents and #LeadWithLeandro.

Not sure who your NC General Assembly Legislators are? Find out here. 

UPCOMING EVENTS
 
CREED-NC is the Center for Racial Equity in Education in North Carolina. As their mission states, "CREED centers students of color, inspires institutional change, & facilitates better educational practice, so we can transform the education system in North Carolina." Their research reports are not to be missed. 

CREED will be hosting CREED Academy 101 and 201 this summer for educators and community supporters. These classes will be held in July and August. "CREED Academy is an opportunity to develop local leadership and advocacy through web-based professional development experiences for all North Carolina public school stakeholders. CREED is committed to changing the trajectory for the more than one-million students in our public school education system. We understand the much-needed transformation required to create competence and confidence in our anti-racist approach to equity. These small group learning sessions are convened around specific topics related to building critical consciousness for educators and stakeholders." Learn more and sign up here. 

PNCC will be participating in the Public Schools First NC Conference on October 9th. Make plans to attend and bring a friend to join us for this wonderful event. 

We are looking forward to hearing from Keynote Speaker Dr. Noliwe Rooks. Rooks is the Director of American studies at Cornell University and before that was the associate director of African American studies at Princeton University. She is the author of Cutting School (The New Press) as well as White Money/Black Power and Hair Raising. The 2021 Conference will address the impact of privatization on our public schools over the past decade and recent legislative actions. Current plans are to hold this conference in-person at the McKimmon Center at NC State University in Raleigh if allowed.

 Details: https://www.publicschoolsfirstnc.org/event/save-the-date-impact-of-privatizing-public-schools-2021-conference/
Know of an event we are missing from our list? Send them to us.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

A Better Life For Their Children: Rosenwald School History

This presentation from the National Center for Civil and Human Rights shared the history of the Rosenwald Schools from the early 1900s. It was a wonderful discussion about school history and how important education is to communities. Our friend Janeen Bryant from CREED NC joined in the panel discussion. 

"Julius Rosenwald and Booker T. Washington forged one of the earliest collaborations between Jews and African Americans to create schools throughout the nation for black children who had no access to publicly funded education. From 1912 to 1937, the Rosenwald schools program built 4,978 schools for African American children across fifteen southern and border states. In what is the first comprehensive photographic account of the Rosenwald Schools program, Andrew Feiler drove more than 25,000 miles and photographed 105 schools in all fifteen of the program states. This exhibition, “A Better Life for Their Children”, will debut at The Center on May 22nd, 2021."

RESOURCE ALERT
Dr. Noliwe Rooks has written Cutting School: The SEGRENOMICS of American Education, and it has a new forward by Diane Ravitch. Rooks will be the speaker at the Public Schools First NC Conference on October 9th, so now's a great chance to get her book and dive in over the summer. 
"In an era characterized by levels of school segregation the country has not seen since the mid-twentieth century, cultural critic and American studies professor Noliwe Rooks provides a trenchant analysis of our separate and unequal schools and argues that profiting from our nation’s failure to provide a high-quality education to all children has become a very big business." https://thenewpress.com/books/cutting-school 

Hear the author interviewed here from April 2020: https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/29/noliwe_rooks_education_during_pandemic

PARTNERSHIP HIGHLIGHTS

Parents For Public Schools Of Pitt County

Parents for Public Schools of Pitt County's vision is that families and communities across Pitt County are actively engaged in strengthening public schools for every child. Their mission is to advance the role of families and communities in securing a high quality public education for every child.They strengthen our public schools by engaging educating and mobilizing our community.

They have 3 primary programs:
  1. Hosting Community Conversations for parents and community members to share about schools and learn about current education topics. The data from these is compiled into an annual report to guide future action. 
  2. Parent Engagement Program and Academy leadership classes to increase positive parent engagement and enhance school-parent collaboration.
  3. School Tours for the community, families, and guests to see what is happening in public schools today. Check out their 2021 Virtual School Tours as a great example of how they pivoted during Covid and created digital access to their public schools that makes these tours more accessible. 
Contact Director Kylene Dibble to learn more. 

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PNCC is a grateful recipient of a Z. Smith Reynold Foundation's Systemic Change Grant to support Public Education in NC. 
 

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