Wake Education Partnership

In 2022, wakeed launched tools4schools, a free classroom supply store for Wake county public school system educators. Tools4schools will surpass $1 million in high-demand, free classroom supplies given away this school year. In just two years, the program has served 100% of Wake county public schools, with at least one teacher from each school taking advantage of shopping for free at the store. Tools4schools addresses the significant gap in funding for classroom supplies in Wake county. In a survey conducted by wakeed Partnership, educators reported spending an average of $916 of their personal money on school supplies per school year. Tools4schools operates like a retail store. Instead of spending their personal money, educators receive 100 points each academic quarter to stock their classrooms with supplies. 98% of participants say the program reduced their out-of-pocket expenses. 90% of participants agree the program has had a positive impact on student preparation. Wakeed leads several workforce-focused programs for students and teachers. In 2022, wakeed created two new career pathways programs for Wake county public school system students under the umbrella accelerate. Career exploration is a year-round program for middle school students and career accelerator is a weeklong summer program for high school students. These programs have collectively engaged more than 40 triangle-area companies to provide business immersion experiences and credentialing opportunities for workforce development to 650 students. For the last 9 years wakeed has led summerstem. Summerstem offers k-12 educators paid immersive experiences with stem businesses throughout the school year to understand the skills necessary to succeed in the workplace using project-based learning (pbl). Partners read is wakeed's literacy program that supports grade-level reading proficiency for struggling first grade readers. Volunteers read with students for 30 minutes on friday mornings for 20 weeks during the school year. Students take the books they read home to build a home library.

Communications & community outreach - a significant role of wakeed is to inform the public, business leaders and elected officials about what works in schools and classrooms to promote academic growth. We also provide clear, independent commentary and review of Education policy issues. In context and wakeedge publications are used as primary communications channels and are distributed to an audience of over 5,000 people in Wake county. In context is published monthly and reports on key educational issues being addressed at the local, state, and national levels. It also provides valuable information regarding discussions and decisions coming from the school board and explains the impact on student achievement. Wakeedge is published as needed to provide the community updates on key legislation, budgetary decisions and issues affecting wcpss. This publication serves as an alert for stakeholders to engage with wakeed on advocacy efforts when a "call to action" is warranted. Open rates for these publications exceed industry average.

Scholarships - the coach bob pittard scholarship fund was established in 2018, after former apex high school teacher and coach robert ray pittard left $2.7 million to wakeed Partnership to establish a sustainable scholarship fund for student athletes at apex high school and green hope high school. The coach bob pittard scholarship fund is available to those graduating seniors from apex high school and green hope high school, located in Wake county who, during their high school years, earned a varsity letter for participation in a full season in a varsity sport. The value of the scholarship, which may be renewable for an additional three years, is $12,500 per academic year. In six years, 88 students have been named coach bob pittard scholars with their awards totaling more than $1,112,500.

Research & advocacy - wakeed works to influence and champion community discussion and actions by elected leaders regarding critical Education policy issues. This includes emphasizing the economic impact of an excellent public school system. Wakeed worked with members of the Wake county legislative delegation and community partners to advocate for increases in teacher and administrator compensation, funding for a teacher career pathway program, flexibility in implementing the new k-3 class-size mandates, and funding for program enhancement teachers. Wakeed worked with the Wake county board of commissioners to resolve budgetary gaps in their recommended school funding versus the proposed budget submitted by the board of Education.

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