One World Education and our students had the honor of being invited to Aspen Institute’s Urban District Leadership Networks’ Joint Retreat. This gathering meets regularly to discuss the most pressing issues in education. The retreat’s focus was implementing the Common Core State Standards: Connecting the Dots of Teacher Evaluation and Professional Growth Systems. There were administrators present from school districts around the country, Baltimore to Los Angeles and everywhere in between.
Sheila Brown, Director of the Aspen Education Program gave the opening remarks and introduced the One World group. Senior Jasmine 
Bolding from Coolidge High School gave her four-minute presentation on multiculturalism and its relation to a college education. Senior Benjamin Acquah from Banneker High School spoke on financial aid for undocumented students. The audience was not only impressed by the students’ abilities, but by the thoughtful topics on which they chose to research and present.
As Corie Colgan, DC Public School’s Deputy Chief, Literacy and Humanities, said, “This was the first time the Aspen group started their sessions this way (to my knowledge) and the student voice was important to remind everyone to keep the focus of our district level work on the student experience. One World Education and our students were a wonderful way to represent that message. Not only were their voices important, but the students' topics were also relevant to all of us as educators.”
Once again, our students had the opportunity to interact with people making a difference in the world. They got to see what making change looks like.
(Pictured: Aspen Institute's Sheila Brown, Coolidge HS senior Jasmine Bolding, Coolidge HS teacher Kamel Igoudjil, and Banneker HS senior Benjamin Acquah.)