Southeast Seattle Education Coalition (SESEC)
FY18 Accomplishments
Through April 2018, SESEC accomplished the following
- SESEC held is monthly coalition meetings with presenters on, for example, the following topics:
- Best Starts of Kids
- McCleary Decision
- Support for Indigenous People
- PTSA Equity Project
- Launched the 4th and 5th cohorts in SESEC’s Advocacy and Policy Cohort (APC). Through APC, 54 community leaders and parents/guardians have been trained on educational policy development, effective advocacy and leadership skills with a racial equity lens. The demonstration project is in its final year and SESEC plans to adopt it as an ongoing program in FY19.
- Initiated the Equity and Equality in Education (EEE) Project. Organized the Planning and Leadership Committee (PLC) which is comprised of representatives from key community organizations and representatives from 5 underrepresented communities. To date, EEE Project has sponsored the following events:
- September 28 – in partnership with the City of Seattle’s Office of Civil Rights, hosted john a. powell to speak on “Advancing Equity With Solidarity in Mind.” Approximately 80 individuals attended the session to hear this nationally recognized speaker on educational justice.
- February 8 – hosted “Our Speakers, Our Stories, Our Strength: why storytelling matters for educational justice.” Approximately 150 people attended this dinner meeting featuring speakers from underrepresented communities telling their stories of educational challenges and personal successes.
- Date TBA – the third event in the EEE Project Speaker and Discussion Series. The theme of the third EEE Project event is: “Making our Own History.”
- Selected by the University of Washington’s College of Education as one of two national sites for its Family Leadership Design Collaborative (FLDC) project – an initiative to address 1) how can communities, families and educational systems co-design transformative possibilities toward community-defined wellbeing and educational justice; and 2) how can we build and enact generative solidarities within and across communities. The initiative will promote leadership development in communities of color.
- Received the El Centro de la Raza, 2017 Robert Maestas Legacy Award in recognition of its work in eliminating racism.
- In November 2017, SESEC received its 501c3 non-profit recognition from the IRS. Organizationally,
- Staff is working to establish the requisite infrastructure (accounting, human resources, payroll, etc.) to end its fiscal sponsorship relationship with Vietnamese Friendship Association and establish itself as an independent community non-profit organization
- Two major proposals are under review that, if awarded, will provide SESEC with two 3-year capacity building grants that will enable SESEC to double its staff from 2 FTEs to 4 FTEs and funding to establish the organizational infrastructure to operate as an independent non-profit organization
- For future programming, SESEC is working to:
- 1) conduct an evaluation of the APC program to assess its future viability; 2) conduct a data research project that analyzes disaggregated school demographic data and trains community groups on understanding data to use in effectively advocacy; and 3) conduct a new family engagement survey in partnership with 3 new schools and community organizations.
- The EEE Project will host 3-4 additional Speaker and Discussion Series events followed by 5 meetings with underrepresented communities to discuss issues they’ve experienced with their children in Seattle Public Schools. The final phase of the EEE Project is a Community Summit to bring together representatives from throughout SE Seattle to discuss information from Phases I and II of the project and to formulate systemic change recommendations to present to Seattle Public Schools.