The listening sessions have begun this week and will be going until November 7th. Please review the below invite. If you have questions, please feel free to reach out to Erin Rocheleau at either erocheleau@maplerun.org or 802-370-3937.
Over the past few years, Maple Run has been working on several initiatives to ensure that our community is a place where everyone belongs, including people who have been historically excluded. Creating a welcoming, equitable community requires all of us to work together. Last year, we planned to bring the community together to find ways to make progress. This is hard work, and we have made some mistakes along the way. These missteps caused us to pause and regroup. One thing that hasn’t changed is our deep commitment to building a strong school community where everyone feels a sense of belonging, and has access to what they need to be successful.
We are writing to invite you to participate in a listening session to help us better understand how we can reduce barriers and create equitable opportunities for students. We are especially interested in hearing from members of our community who have been most impacted by inequities. The sessions will be facilitated by The Creative Discourse Group, and we are offering affinity spaces (spaces where people who hold similar identities can be together). As a way to thank you for sharing your time and perspective with us, we are able to offer a $50 honoraria to the first 100 people who sign up to participate. If you would like to participate but don’t want an honoraria, you can opt out.
We hope these conversations will be a meaningful experience for participants in addition to helping inform our next steps. If you are interested in participating, please simply click here to share your contact information and your availability. We will be in touch soon with more details.
Following the listening sessions we will convene a local committee that will work with The Creative Discourse Group to help design and organize a series of community conversations in 2023 to discuss the themes from the listening sessions and generate specific action ideas that can help our community continue to make progress.
Thank you for considering this request. We look forward to hearing from you soon.
The following sessions are still open for sign-up:
- Students
- MRUSD Staff
- BIPOC Residents
- LGBTQ+ Residents
- City BEI Committee
- Open Group
- Abenaki
- Community Partners
- Government Officials
- Migrant Workers
October 18, 2022