News Flash!!!

Mark the date, next Monday - Be there!

Roanoke, VA - On Monday, Nov. 12, at 3 p.m., Roanoke Public Schools
will host a Community Report on the "Promise of Roanoke" initiative
in the auditorium of Stonewall Jackson Middle School, located at 1004
Montrose Ave. SE. This citizen-led initiative takes a broad look
across the city to identify what should be done to prepare the
children in our community to succeed as students in the public
education system, and in life.

In April of this year, seven action teams comprised of partner
organizations and citizen volunteers began carefully examining and
identifying specific strategies for the success of this initiative.
The Community Report will share a set of recommendations identified
by those action teams, which met over an eight-month period.

Based on the belief that a bright future for our community starts
with quality education for our children, "The Promise of Roanoke"
initiative addresses the following concerns:

• How to prepare all children for school and beyond
• Identification of organizations working to help children succeed
and assessment of how to build synergy around their work
• More effective use of regional and local assets
• Creation of a process that allows our community the opportunity to
talk about issues and solutions to children's problems
• Use of lessons of the past to create a new future
• Involvement of the entire community in the process-it takes a
village…
• Establishment of a blueprint for a prosperous future for Roanoke

Dr. Suzanne Morse, president of the Pew Partnership for Civic Change
and a fellow of Virginia Tech's Center for Organizational and
Technological Advancement (COTA), has facilitated the training for
the initiative and will use the city as a laboratory to train other
communities in the future on how to seek solutions to major community
issues.

For more information, please contact Dr. Susan Short, Director,
Virginia Tech Roanoke Center, at (540) 767-6100 or by email at
sshort@vt.edu; or Chuck Kirby with the Virginia Tech Roanoke Center
at (540) 767-6109 or by email at rhkirby@vt.edu.