At Summit Education Initiative (SEI), we believe meaningful systems change happens when the right people come together with a shared purpose, reliable data, authentic community voice, and a commitment to continuous improvement.
SEI brings educators, practitioners, community partners, and cross-sector leaders together to learn from one another, use data and lived experience to understand challenges, align around shared priorities, and collaboratively improve outcomes for children and young people across Summit County.
Our work is organized through countywide collaboratives that provide shared leadership and alignment around key cradle-to-career outcomes. Within these collaboratives, smaller peer learning networks create opportunities for practitioners to dig deeper, strengthen practice, test strategies, and generate learning that informs broader community action.
Build relationships and bring people together.
Elevate voices and understand what matters most.
Use data and lived experience to drive shared learning.
Align around shared priorities and coordinate action.
Test, learn, and strengthen strategies together.
Turn learning into changes that improve outcomes.
The PK–8 Collaborative serves as Summit County’s countywide cross-sector leadership table for advancing early learning and student success from preschool through eighth grade.
The Collaborative brings together leaders from early childhood, K–12 education, educational service agencies, higher education, healthcare, philanthropy, nonprofits, and community organizations to establish shared priorities, examine community data and learning, and coordinate collective action.
Preschool providers, Barberton City Schools, and community partners strengthening early learning outcomes and kindergarten transitions.
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Preschool educators strengthening classroom practice around shared Kindergarten Readiness priorities.
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Educators from Summit County districts served by the Summit ESC building shared understanding and improvement priorities.
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Structured opportunities for educators to share experience and elevate classroom learning across the county.
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The College & Career Readiness Collaborative brings together leaders from K–12 education, higher education, workforce, employers, and community organizations to strengthen alignment around what students need to successfully navigate life beyond high school.
Practitioners examine student experiences and outcomes beyond high school, share promising practices, and improve strategies that support postsecondary access, persistence, completion, and career readiness.
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Whether you’re an educator, parent, employer, or community leader, there’s a place for you in Summit County’s collaborative work. When we learn together and take action together, every child can thrive.
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.