About the Essex County Learning Community
Welcome to the Essex County Learning Community (ECLC), a cross-district experience for educators from public school districts just north of Boston. The goal of the ECLC is to use a community of practitioners approach to lift up and scale district, school, and classroom strategies that enable educators to better serve students with diverse learning assets and needs.
Due to marked demographic and socioeconomic shifts over the past decade, school districts in cities and towns just outside of our nation’s largest urban centers, including in Essex County, are recognizing the critical need for educators to shift mindsets, broaden and deepen their leadership repertoire, and master a much larger toolbox of strategies.
We believe that, in order to be successful in this mission, adults in schools must be provided the time, the space, and a set of rich experiences that enable them to develop strong and trusting working relationships, reflect deeply on their practice, and experiment with new ideas and strategies that benefit all students - especially those who assets and needs may be outside the so-called mainstream. Ultimately, we hope that educators come to understand, to quote scholar and author Todd Rose, that “there’s no such thing as the average learner” and that “when we teach to the average, we teach to no one.”
The ECLC was launched in 2018 through the Reimagine Learning Fund, a project of New Profit, a national venture philanthropy firm based in Boston, and was funded by the Peter and Elizabeth C. Tower Foundation. The Foundation continues to fund the ECLC, which is directed by Full Frame Communications, LLC. From 2018 through 2021, the Center for Collaborative Education (CCE) joined with us as ECLC's implementation partner. ECLC continues to work with an array of partner organizations, and our current collaborations include: the National Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity (SEED) Project, EdTogether, Transcend Education, and more.
Now in our fourth year of operation, the ECLC is structured to maximize relationship-building and connections within and across districts that are in close geographic proximity.
Due to marked demographic and socioeconomic shifts over the past decade, school districts in cities and towns just outside of our nation’s largest urban centers, including in Essex County, are recognizing the critical need for educators to shift mindsets, broaden and deepen their leadership repertoire, and master a much larger toolbox of strategies.
We believe that, in order to be successful in this mission, adults in schools must be provided the time, the space, and a set of rich experiences that enable them to develop strong and trusting working relationships, reflect deeply on their practice, and experiment with new ideas and strategies that benefit all students - especially those who assets and needs may be outside the so-called mainstream. Ultimately, we hope that educators come to understand, to quote scholar and author Todd Rose, that “there’s no such thing as the average learner” and that “when we teach to the average, we teach to no one.”
The ECLC was launched in 2018 through the Reimagine Learning Fund, a project of New Profit, a national venture philanthropy firm based in Boston, and was funded by the Peter and Elizabeth C. Tower Foundation. The Foundation continues to fund the ECLC, which is directed by Full Frame Communications, LLC. From 2018 through 2021, the Center for Collaborative Education (CCE) joined with us as ECLC's implementation partner. ECLC continues to work with an array of partner organizations, and our current collaborations include: the National Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity (SEED) Project, EdTogether, Transcend Education, and more.
Now in our fourth year of operation, the ECLC is structured to maximize relationship-building and connections within and across districts that are in close geographic proximity.
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Why a Learning Community?
An abundance of research reveals that when adults in schools learn together in sustained and intentional ways, students benefit greatly.
“. . . Schools become better places for kids when teachers become better teachers, when they relentlessly improve their practice, when they are learners. Moreover, teachers (or any other educators, for that matter) cannot improve their craft in isolation from others. . .”(Breidenstein, Fahey, Glickman, & Hensley, 2012).
A learning community, or what Fahey and Ippolito (2015) call an “intentional learning community” is characterized by at least two core features:
The use of structured conversations or “protocols” that help professionals move beyond their comfort zones, enabling them to “try on different ideas, examine assumptions, ask unsettling questions, and embrace discomfort in a way that is safe and manageable” (Fahey and Ippolito, 2015).
Skilled facilitation and coaching, whether through structured off-site team time or on-site meetings, that deepen adult learning by pushing the boundaries and stimulating new kinds of conversations, especially on topics that are often avoided because they are fraught or unfamiliar.
Learning communities address and help remedy the isolation felt by so many educators. By connecting meaningfully with one another, whether inside a single school, within a district, or across districts—educators come to feel a renewed sense of purpose, increased energy and confidence, and a hopefulness about the future.
