Community Input – Horizon 2.0 Revisits the Plan
In November of 2009, Horizon 2.0 hosted a daylong workshop with over 200 community, civic and business leaders to identify the priority issues facing Elkhart County. Horizon, with a grant from the Indiana Humanities Council and Bowen Center, invited speakers to discuss creative initiatives that have been successfully implemented as econonomic stimulus tools. Bill Johnson, Horizon Project chair from 2002-2006, Bart Peterson, former mayor of Indianapolis; and founder and board president of the Mind Trust, Bob Jorth, Executive Administrator, Kalamazoo Promise Scholarship, and John Fetterman, Mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania were the featured presenters.
In response to these presentations and resulting feedback from the community, the Horizon 2.0 Team heard significant community-wide interest in bolstering the local economy utilizing innovative educational programs and initiatives.
Next on the Horizon
Transforming education brings economic recovery
Not-surprisingly, transformation and reform is presently at the forefront of the minds of Elkhart County school administrators. All local school districts are currently preparing applications and initiatives for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Race to the Top Fund, which provides competitive grants to encourage and reward schools that are creating the conditions for education innovation and reform. Elkhart County schools seek to push our K-12 educational system to become one of the nation’s top schools.
To support this endeavor and learn more detail about the initiatives which will shape the local school systems, Horizon 2.0 is partnering with the University of Indianapolis Center for Excellence in Leadership of Learning (CELL) to facilitate a meeting with business leaders, elected officials and school superintendents. The goals of this meeting are to identify the priority issues currently impeding education and learn about innovative and transformative strategies which could take place in Elkhart County. This meeting will take place on January 19th, 2010.