We are celebrating a key  milestone as we hit conversation #20 today! There has been so much learning in these #100DistrictConversations.

For example, in today's conversation with Myriam Ortiz, Chief of Community Engagement for Boston Public Schools, we learn the power of aligning organization expertise to school need. Myriam and her team have worked tirelessly to support school leaders in finding the right strategic school partnerships, sourcing, vetting, and hiring local community organizations for a range of school and student opportunities.

"I'm passionate about strengthening Boston Public Schools (BPS) through meaningful partnerships that empower our students and families. In order to ensure these partnerships are the best quality possible, we needed to first understand who all the current partners were across our district’s 119 schools and how they support our schools. To collect this data, we conducted a comprehensive survey of school partnerships, from mentoring to athletics to before/after-school programming. This landscape analysis helped us launch a Request For Proposal (RFP) process with 15 categories of services and programs.

My office both manages funds and supports schools in building strong partnerships with vetted enrichment program providers. The Partnership Fund allocates dollars yearly to a selected group of schools. We use the district’s Opportunity Index (OI) to make the selection of schools. The OI is a tool that helps to identify schools with the greatest need and the team then helps those schools find the right partners to advance their goals.

Our work with Boston-area Community Based Organizations (CBOs) is twofold. We work with CBOs to teach them about BPS policies and make sure they’re best able to provide service. We also support and partner with CBOs to develop clear school-facing profiles displayed on our Partner BPS website and address their procurement needs. We have made significant strides in streamlining our processes and systems with over 700 partner programs.

By doing this work centrally, we are ensuring that our schools feel empowered to make informed choices with accurate technical and programmatic information. That way, they can make the most informed decisions that will best serve their school communities. We're expanding our focus to develop impact data collection and analysis systems to better define what a high-quality partner is so that schools can more strategically engage with partners. The results of this process will also help to ensure alignment with the district's strategic plan, including Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) and relationship-building, and measuring partner and program impact as we go. To continue moving this work forward, we created a strategic vision specifically for the Partnerships Office that aligns with the district's priorities."