One of the first Sunday morning breakout sessions was titled “Grow Your Own Models: Preliminary Results from the Spring Grow Your Own Summit.” PDK Director of Programs Anne Morris discussed with participants how Educators Rising is working to bring together different stakeholders at regional Grow Your Own Summits. At these summits, they can build a network and brainstorm ways to push their grow your own programming forward.

The first Educators Rising Educators Rising New England Grow Your Own (GYO) Summit was held on May 9 in Lowell, Massachusetts. Participants in this day-long summit included teacher leaders, school and district administrators, state officials, institutions of higher education, and union representatives who traveled from across Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. State groups at the May summit discussed how to take their program to the next level. They shared solutions that have been used to tackle implementation challenges.

At the Sunday breakout session, Morris shared the strategies discussed in May as well as the common problems of practice areas that some are facing in New England. Session participants discussed how they were encountering similar implementation factors. They talked about how they were partnering with others in their regions to help support rising educators’ journey from high school into college and then back into their community to teach.

Implementation strategies for GYO programs are further detailed in Educators Rising’s “Growing the Teaching Profession Blueprint: A Blueprint to Establishing a Place-based Grow Your Own Program.“