Change happens when partners come together. Our Peer Learning Networks are structured spaces where educators, nonprofits, families and stakeholders build shared knowledge and drive collective action. Our PLNs are organized around key transition points in a student’s cradle-to-career journey, bringing together high-impact partners with the reach, readiness and resources to drive meaningful change.
Connect schools, nonprofits, and government agencies around shared goals and measurable student outcomes.
Uncover gaps, track progress, and guide decisions using real data from Summit County communities.
Spread proven practices across programs and policies so good ideas reach the students who need them most.
Students, parents, and community members help shape the strategies. Solutions should reflect the people they serve.
This collaborative anchors our work to ensure more children enter kindergarten ready to learn. We align early childhood instruction with kindergarten expectations and help promising practices spread across systems.
In partnership with Akron Public Schools, this network works to identify literacy barriers before they become long-term gaps. Teachers and school leaders review TS Gold and classroom observation data together, then develop targeted strategies to close instructional gaps. The network also looks at mental health and wraparound supports as factors in overall readiness.
Preschool teachers, support staff, and directors come together to look honestly at how well preschool prepares children for kindergarten. By comparing Creative Curriculum, the Transition Skills Summary, TS Gold, and KRA results, the team surfaces instructional disconnects and builds aligned strategies together.
A community-driven effort to make high-quality preschool more accessible in Barberton. The collaborative connects providers, Barberton City Schools, and civic leaders around shared goals, with dedicated workgroups tackling workforce challenges and program evaluation head-on.
This student led network elevates youth voice in school and community decision-making with representatives from districs across the county.
Helps students arrive at life after high school prepared and supported, with aligned resources around enrollment, persistence, and program completion.
Families are partners, not passengers. This coalition lifts parent voice, builds leadership capacity, and brings families into the process of co-designing solutions.
Our Peer Learning Networks are made up of invited partners, but we are always looking for organizations that share our commitment to Summit County students. If that sounds like you, fill out a short form and we will follow up.
In addition to our countywide networks, SEI supports city and county-level partnerships across Summit County. We work alongside local governments, school districts, community-based organizations, and civic leaders to align strategies, make sense of data, and improve outcomes for children and families. We show up as a strategic facilitator, a data resource, and a thought partner.
We are a proud partner in Mayor Shammas Malik’s Together for Akron initiative, a community-centered plan to tackle the city’s biggest challenges. Under the Growing Together pillar, which focuses on opportunity for youth and older adults, we are helping build a coordinated, high-quality early learning system that works for every Akron family. We sit in core leadership alongside early childhood experts and civic leaders, helping plan, measure, and implement the work.
This cross-sector team focuses on young people who are farthest from opportunity due to barriers related to race, place, or economic circumstance. The goal is to connect them to out-of-school experiences that build real skills, expand networks, and open doors. We serve as co-lead and data expert, helping design systems that make these opportunities more accessible, better coordinated, and built to last.