Guest Presenters:

  • Morgan Evers, ASPIRE (Leon, Wakulla and Gadsden counties)
  • Colleen Lockwood, Bridge2Life (Broward County)
  • Chuck Tiernan, LEAP Tampa Bay
  • Tessa LeSage, FutureMakers (Southwest Florida)


FCAN Host:
 Kimberly Krupa, FCAN Network Consultant

The Florida College Access Network hosted a virtual Lunch-&-Learn webinar on Monday, June 12 showcasing the results of four college access communities engaged in building a talent pipeline focused on Black student success. The final capstone session was designed to showcase the 2022-2023 Community of Practice learning journey, with special guests from FCAN’s partners at NextEra Energy. Here are the key takeaways: 

 

ASPIRE Capital Region
Morgan Evers, the LCAN lead from ASPIRE Capital Region, focused her presentation on ASPIRE’s scaling-for-equity journey. Through the Community of Practice, Morgan’s team at ASPIRE used the PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) continuous improvement cycle to implement a FAFSA completion campaign strategy at an additional high-need school in Leon County, Ghazvini. This year, Susan Barrineau, head of guidance at Amos P. Godby High School in Tallahassee, won the College Ready Florida Innovator Award for her role in establishing the ASPIRE’s BEACON pilot program. Through BEACON, the school partnered with  ASPIRE to train professionals in the community as volunteers who could come to Godby and work with seniors to complete last year’s FAFSA. Godby saw immediate results: the percentage of seniors at the school who completed the FAFSA increased from 18% through March 2021 to 41% through March 2022. In scaling this success to a second location this year, ASPIRE learned what it takes to build a college-going culture across an entire school year and begining in 9th grade, when exposure to FAFSA and the postsecondary journey really begins.

Bridge2Life (Broward County)
Colleen Lockwood, the LCAN lead from B2L, showed an incredible video summary of her team’s efforts to incorporate parent voice into their LCAN action planning, implementation and project design. The project, entitled “We Can Serve Our Black and Brown Families Better: An Emancipatory Community-Based Study,” is a collaborative effort spearheaded by Colleen’s team, including head researcher Dr. Charisse Southwell. The results of two years’ worth of listening to parent perspectives have reinforced B2L’s commitment to developing solutions that are “culturally sustaining, rigourosly evidence-based and accessible,” said Colleen. Armed with fresh parent feedback, the B2L team will be working next on convening and creating strategies that work including STEM education; using data to illuminate issues; understanding and investing the communities B2L serves; and communicating for impact.

To learn more about this work – and watch the recording – click the link below.

Pin It on Pinterest

Skip to content