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What we’ve been up to... 

We know that summer school, student camps, and construction projects are in full swing. We also hope that you are finding time to relax and recharge and to enjoy the heat and/or stay cool! We’ve been very busy with professional learning over the past couple of weeks! 

• ECN Workshop with ROE Coaches Statewide – Illinois has a rich legacy of instructional coaching in districts throughout the State, and recently this has been expanded with the increase in coaching roles at Regional Offices of Education to support all districts in their regions as well as to support districts that cannot fund their own coaches internally. With statewide efforts that have been spearheaded by the ROE 33 team, ECN has partnered throughout the year with ROE 33 to support ROE coaches and instructional leaders across Illinois. This week, we hosted a custom workshop to help support ROE coaches with the unique and particularly challenging aspects of their work. Coaches from around the State worked with Alison Gordon and Sharon Sheehan throughout the day as they engaged with one another to identify strategies to best support their districts and teachers. 

• Golden Apple Scholar Institute 2/3 – This week, as part of our integrated team with the NIU College of Education, we have the privilege of partnering with the Golden Apple Foundation for Scholar Institute 2/3. As these Scholars continue to move through their undergraduate educational experiences toward culminating with student teaching, they were able to engage in a wide range of professional learning activities with current administrators and teachers throughout Illinois. Pictured here, NIU Professor Paul Wright, who leads the NIU COE PALS group, facilitates a teambuilding activity with scholars. This work was rooted in the CASEL framework and showed them how such learning can be applied to working with students of all ages and across all instructional contexts. The Scholars also built community among themselves. 
  

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Apply Now – Parent Mentor Programs

ISBE has shared that applications are now open for Parent Mentor Program grants through the Parent Engagement Institute. These grants seek partnerships between community organizations and local public schools. Grants would likely be approximately $100,000 to run a Parent Mentor Program in two schools with a cohort of six to eight parent mentors in each school during the coming school year. Parent mentors are volunteers who work with individual students and/or with small groups of students for two hours per day and at least two hundred hours total. For more information, please visit the Parent Engagement Institute website. 

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College Changes Everything – Registration Open 

You're invited to register now for the July 17, 2025, College Changes Everything® (CCE) conference – How do we build community? In uncertain and changing times, hope becomes a vital anchor that enables people to navigate challenges with resilience and purpose and with a sense of belonging and community. This year we invite you to gather not only to explore new ideas and strategies, but also to actively build community that sparks inspiration and action. By engaging in meaningful dialogue and sharing best practices informed by experience, participants actively contribute to building a network of mutual support and understanding. Together, we can embody the powerful notion that hope is not just a feeling, but a shared commitment to shaping a brighter future for our students because we know education matters. As we examine this year's conference question in greater depth, we can also look at these questions: 

• How can our community better understand and meet the needs of our students? 

• How can we strengthen and expand our community? 

• How can our community work together to marshal resources for our most vulnerable students? 

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