Last night there was a program for parents of District 200 students at the new Woodstock North High School. The title was "Creating Connections That Count." Who was it for? "Parents, coaches, club advisors, or any group of adults that (sic) are involved with youth."
The featured speaker, Ty Sells, had spoken earlier in the day to students at Woodstock North and also at Woodstock High School. At WNHS he addressed only junior and senior students. (What a shame that freshmen and sophomores weren't exposed to him!!!)
So, how many showed up last night? About 20. That's 2-0. Twenty, including D-200 staff (at least 4), students who came back in the evening for extra credit (8?) and a handful of parents, including Northwest Herald reporter Lee Ann Gill, who wrote a nice article that was published in this morning's paper.
I'm not going to tell you what you missed, but you missed a great speaker, whose free-flow presentation moved quickly and involved the entire audience. What did you miss? You missed what you didn't hear last night!
District 200 obviously has not figured out the piece to market to parents. It's not for lack of trying, but the staff are not marketing people who understand how to attract parents' attention and get their off their backsides and into the high school auditorium at 7:00PM on a Wednesday. Sure, they work all day. Sure, they are tired. So what? Had they shown up last night, they would have left energized!
I recommended to D200 that they investigate why the parents didn't show up. Even the parents of the students who came back in the evening didn't show up. The students were to get extra credit, if they brought their parents. Even without their parents, they came back. These students are the future leaders!
D200 should email all the parents and ask why they didn't show up. And email all the students and ask them why their parents didn't show up.
Ty is associated with Youth to Youth International (www.youthtoyouth.net/). If/when he comes back to northern Illinois, be sure to hear him and meet him!
2 comments:
We had Ty come and speak to our students a few weeks ago and now we're thinking of having the Connections that Count presentation as well. Would you be willing to share a bit about the event, how it went, what topics he discussed, how long he presented for, etc? It would be greatly appreciated!
Kathryn, thanks for your inquiry. May I refer you to Laurie Crain at D-200? Her email is lcrain@d200.mchenry.k12.il.us
I'm going to pass the buck to her for the answers.
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