Page 17 - BusinessWest February 3, 2021
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“Most communities make it one of the activi- ties as part of creating a plan,” he explained. “It’s not as common to create that vision first and then build the plan based on the vision. I think it’s important that we not make decisions on how to change schools until we have that clarity of vision that a portrait provides.”
Warwick agreed. “Clearly, this has become a best practice — communities need to take a look at what everyone thinks our graduates should look like, not only the academic skills, but all the
helping to create this portrait.
“I think it excited people,” Warwick told Busi-
nessWest. “The community involvement has been tremendous — the breadth of the input from every sector of the community has been signifi- cant, and this new concept has helped us with that.”
The acknowledgment that needed skills for success in the 21st-century workplace extends well beyond academics is made clear in the six ‘pillars’ of the portrait — learn, work, thrive, lead,
clear indicator of its importance to the future of the city and the region.
For this issue and its focus on education, Busi- nessWest takes an in-depth look at the Portrait of a Graduate initiative, its goals, and why Spring- field school officials believe it will pay dividends in their ongoing efforts to ensure that students not only graduate, but can succeed after they do.
Course of Action
Foster told BusinessWest that Portrait of a Graduate, or POG for short, is becoming an increasingly popular response to what has a national issue, or concern — helping students succeed beyond the classroom.
He said the movement, if it can be called that, started several years ago in the private-school arena, and was quickly embraced by public schools as well. The basic concept is to ask a question — what skills and attributes will stu- dents need to succeed years and decades down the road? — and ask a lot of different of people that question. It sounds logical, but it in many ways represents a new way of thinking about this issue, Warwick said.
“Instead of traditional educators looking at this problem, we have a wider breadth of involve- ment from the community at large and the busi- ness community,” he explained. “We’re getting a lot of input on the skills and attributes that peo- ple are looking for that, for traditional educators like myself, wouldn’t have been the first things we would be thinking about.”
What are these attributes and skills? The list includes financial literacy, problem solving, and perseverance — being able to stick with some- thing until the problem is solved, said Foster,
      DAN WARWICK
“Clearly, this has become a best practice — communities need to take a look at what everyone thinks our graduates should look like, not only the academic skills, but all the other skills as well.”
persist, and communi- cate, said Azell Cavaan, chief Communications officer for Springfield Public Schools, adding that the school system has received more than 1,400 responses to a survey regarding a draft portrait that reflects how these pillars will be addressed moving forward.
All those we spoke with noted that there are
other skills as well.
“Other iterations of our strategic plans were
mostly academic-focused, which is what you would expect for a school system to put forward in a strategic plan,” he went on. “But this piece is designed to take a wider look and really get the community to rally around what they want our graduates to look like and what attributes they’ll need, and then we’ll build the actual strategic plan from that profile.”
By most accounts, he noted, it has succeeded in its goal of garnering community interest in
few real surprises in the feedback that has been received, and the skills and attributes identified as needed are included in most school systems’ strategic plans. However, it is important to have these sentiments reinforced, and equally impor- tant to gain input from a broad, diverse audience, one that reflects the community in question.
“We’ve had hundreds of meetings in every segment of the community, and folks have really stayed with this,” Warwick said, adding that the city has been able to maintain momentum for the initiative even in the middle of pandemic, a
   EDUCATION
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