About the Community Conversations

Planning Team

Background

The Community Conversations on Equity in Pulaski County Schools were initiated in early 2021 by a diverse convening group of parents, grandparents, pastors, and concerned community members (pictured above). The convening group came together to create a forum for community conversation because of a concern that public comments at school board meetings and social media outrage were not only causing harm to children; they were also distracting from the work we all need to do together to make sure all Pulaski County children are loved and supported to reach their full potential. Intentionally, the convening group for these conversations was diverse - racially, politically, geographically and generationally. Convening group members do not agree on all educational policy issues, but do agree that they want to contribute to supporting all Pulaski County children to be successful.

Since its inception, the group has held three community meetings.

The first was designed to help a broad cross section of Pulaski County residents understand each others' perspectives around equity and to find ways to work together to support all Pulaski County children. In the second community meeting, participants learned about local history around race and equity and heard stories from parents who have had challenges getting the support their children need in our schools. Participants looked at equity-related data around test scores and discipline rates in Pulaski County Public Schools and ultimately identified literacy as a strategic entry point for community action to begin addressing educational equity issues.

In the third meeting, held on March 6, 2022, community members came together to generate action plans around four strategies for engaging the community in supporting our children’s reading skills:

(1) getting more books into the homes of Pulaski County children;

(2) taking educational resources and information into neighborhoods where parents are rather than waiting for parents to come to the schools;

(3) better educating the community about volunteer opportunities in and out of schools and educating parents about online resources available to help their children learn; and

(4) convincing our School Board and Board of Supervisors to allocate funding for full-time para-educators in all kindergarten classrooms that exceed 10 students.