New Americans: Manchester students should be team players, problem solvers

Manchester Proud asked a group of Manchester New Americans how schools can best prepare students for success. Like many parents we’ve heard from, they want their children to be critical thinkers, team players, and problem solvers.

They’d like our schools to encourage creativity and experiential learning and teach students how to adapt to an ever-changing world. And they said English language classes for parents would help them be even more involved with their children’s schools.

The Manchester YWCA hosted this “visioning session” for us. It was one of many we’ve done across the city to learn what the people of Manchester want students to know and be able to do when they graduate. We also met with a group of seniors last week.

Three members of our Community Planning Group – Anthony Poore, Trinidad Tellez, and Norma Gonzalez – led the session. They posed two-questions guiding our work: What do students need to know and be able to do to be successful. 

We are using everything we hear to create a plan to remodel education in Manchester. Starting in December, we will hold several public sessions to get community feedback on that plan before we present it to the Board of School Committee in February. 

We will begin posting the dates and locations of those public sessions soon on our website, Facebook page, and Twitter feed. We hope to see you there.

Manchester Proud believes the future of Manchester depends on the planning we do today – for our city and for our schools.

We are Manchester families, students, educators, business owners, and community leaders committed to:

  • creating a plan to make sure our schools have the supports to ready our students, and therefore our city, for the challenges and opportunities ahead.
  • ensuring this plan includes the ideas, hopes, and dreams of everyone in Manchester.