How can schools, communities and families work together to support the whole child?

Jonathan Raymond, the former superintendent of the Sacramento City Unified School District, and author of “Wildflowers: A Superintendent’s Challenge to America,” offers some simple advice:

“Make every decision from the perspective of what is best for children.”

Putting children and youth at the center is easy to say, but very hard to do. This may be one of the reasons that when polled, educators prefer specific descriptors like “social and emotional learning” (SEL) and “life skills” to open-ended ones like “whole child” and “youth development.” Jonathan’s language, however, is as expansive as his vision.

In this thought leader conversation, the Forum’s President & CEO Karen Pittman sat down with Jonathan to look at the practical questions of:
· How do we actually put children and youth at the center?
· How do we strengthen adult capacity and commitment from the classroom to the citywide initiative?
· How do we address the power imbalances that keep us tethered to old definitions of learning?
· What can superintendents really do?