PECAN has had a phenomenal year and things are just heating up for this group of active and engaged parents. To add to their success, our workshop proposal, Parents ARE the solution: Creating CoPOWERment, has been accepted for the 2021 Cradle to Career Network Convening in San Antonio. This workshop will be co-led by the Family and Community Engagement team along with parents.
Here are few accomplishments that have made the biggest impact in 2021:
  • PECAN hosted 10 parent leader meetings organized, facilitated, and informed by parents. Topic included: supporting a child with special needs with guest speaker, Sara Taylor; understanding learning loss; and school reopening with Dr. Lesli Myers-Small.
  • PECAN developed a Parent Manifesto advocating for opportunities that have potential to meaningfully center family voice and transform this voice from token representation to a position of influence that shifts the power to those most knowledgeable about the needs of children and families in Rochester.
  • PECAN organized meetings to inform reopening decisions made by the RCSD Board of Education.
  • PECAN developed a set of recommendations for American Rescue Plan funding and organized parents to join RCSD community and parent input sessions. There is still time to sign on to the recommendations.
  • PECAN appointed two parent leaders as co-chairs, Nahmese Bacot & Maurice Haskins. Both will be added to the ROC the Future Executive Committee and will actively shift the narrative of ROC the Future and modeling authentic Co-Powerment.
We are honored to celebrate the ways in which our parent leaders are setting the standard for Parent Co-Powerment. We are shining a light on the following parents:
  • Toyin Anderson who is featured in the StriveTogether Annual Report for her work as a board member with The Children’s Agenda and the work to remove police officers from schools.
  • Maria Cruz who was featured in a news story with Spectrum News highlighting the ways she utilized ROC the Future’s Learning Loss Toolkit to help address unfinished learning.
  • All of the parent leaders that have joined our leadership table and increased participation by 140%, growing from 5 parents on the leadership team to 12.