I am honored to be Chair of this amazing Special Interest Group! We are so much greater than the sum of our parts, and we have many exciting things going on as a SIG and in our individual members' professional lives. The other members of the Executive Committee and I love what we as a SIG have been doing and also have dreams about how we can build on our strengths. We read through the great feedback you provided via the survey I sent out in May 2024 and generated ideas through a robust discussion during our June Executive Committee meeting. 

Towards our mission of promoting "the study and dissemination of research on school, family, and community connections that support children's learning and development," we want to connect researchers (across the year, not just at the conference); raise the voices of underserved communities; collaborate with other SIGs to strengthen common messages; diversify the SIG in terms of research focus, rank of scholars, and racial and ethnic diversity; foster intergenerational support/connection; and consider ways we can engage in policy work.

• Work we are planning to engage in this year:
  • Convening the Community of Practice! (Please reach out to Kristin atkristintheresevogel@gmail.com if you would like to help with this!)
  • Having a great conference and business meeting next April!
  • Awarding graduate student travel awards and dissertation awards!
  • Hosting a virtual speaker for the SIG. 
  • Establishing a mentoring network pairing more senior with more junior scholars in the field of family, school, and community partnership!
  • Communicating more frequently than the newsletter by sending out these FSC Friday Flyers to members every two weeks!

*PLEASE email me to let me know about anything you would like to include in the Friday Flyer. For organization's sake, please write FSC FRIDAY FLYER in the subject line of your email. We would love to publicize new publications, grants, collaborations, awards, opportunities, jobs, videos, resources, etc. related to family, school, and community partnerships. My email: shana.haines@uvm.edu*