P-16s: People in the community coming together

On Tuesday night, I was really taken back by a meeting of interested community members in Loudon County. In a meeting room at a local church, about 15 - 20 people came together around making education a top priority in Loudon County.

Looking around, there are people from local banks, local businesses, retired teachers, people from Pellissippi State, the Loudon County Director of Schools, Health Education Alliance Loudon, current Loudon County School administrators, parents, the county property assessor, Leadership Loudon members, ETC. See where I'm going?

These people are coming together to try and formulate a P-16 Council. These councils are typically run out of community colleges (part of the Tennessee Board of Regents system of higher education) and offer a voice to the community in education. A very active regional group is the Mid-East P-16. They're also well-connected to the Hamblen County P-16...a group that literally painted the town with EDUCATION (legend has it that even grocery clerks were asking customers if they supported education!). They've helped to identify where the community can go with education as a connection point with many other things.

Everyone at the Loudon meeting had to decide on a vision for the group.
Within 5 minutes, it was clear: Making education a top priority in Loudon.
All coming from different perspectives, they all agree that education is necessary for an economically successful and healthy community that has a high quality of life. Their next meeting is in May...contact Debbie Henry from Health Education Alliance Loudon.

Conversations like these are happening all over the area. See groups like the Blount Education Initiative. With all these things popping up, the real challenge will be to ALIGN these conversations in hopes that we can help raise the bar for education in TN.

You, too, can help to lead some of these conversations in your community. Hopefully the United Way can be a part of unifying the community around the importance of education in TN.