Georgia Educators & Students Highlighted

Georgia Graduation Stories on the Road

This Fall, the Georgia Graduation Stories blog hit the road to report on statewide conferences and events that highlighted Georgia students and educators. These conferences and events are annual happenings that offer a rich source of resource materials and networking opportunities for educators. Three events are highlighted below. Look for more detail and pictures in upcoming blog posts.


GPEE's 16th Annual Bus Trip Across Georgia
The theme this year was "Strengthening the Pipeline to Graduation". There were 8 stops on the North trip (October 28-30) and 6 stops on the South trip (November 18-20). Each stop is a visit to a school, community program or institution of higher learning that demonstrates good things in student learning that can benefit others in Georgia. Programs selected to participate as a stop on the Bus Trip are recognized for their achievement and the hard work and success of their students and education team. Educators and community leaders riding on the Bus Trip share in the acknowledgement of each school's success and share these best practices with their own learning community.

Visit the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education website for more information and to view video tapes of previous Bus Trips.

DeVry University sponsored Young Women in Science and Technology (YWIST) as a service program for Georgia high schools. The goals of the program are to encourage and reinforce young women's interest in careers involving science and technology and to increase the number of young women pursing these careers. Over 400 high school juniors and seniors from all over Georgia along with their parents, teachers and guidance counselors had a day to explore career options, to be motivated by a panel of outstanding women professionals and to celebrate dreams for the future. The November 13th event was offered at no charge to the participants.

Visit the DeVry website to learn more about the University along with the YWIST program and sponsors.


The 20th Annual National Dropout Prevention Network Conference was held in Atlanta on November 16-19, 2008. Georgia educators were prominent as presenters and in the planning and implementation of the conference. The conference theme "Carrying the Torch of Dreams...Every Student Graduates" was appropriate in a setting where Georgia's Graduation Coach program was the focus of much interest, and the Coaches were the largest single group within the 1,200 educators and administrators attending the conference. Keynote speakers included Dr. Molly Howard (Jefferson County), 2007 National Principal of the Year; Kathy Cox, State Superintendent of Schools and Governor Sunny Perdue.
Georgia Public Broadcasting presented a conference session on the Georgia Graduation Stories blog.

Visit the National Dropout Prevention Network website to learn more about the organization and the conference. You can also find out more about the monthly webcasts on Dropout Prevention. You can also link to these announcements through the Georgia Graduation Stories blog. Look for the Dropout Prevention label on the list of current blog posts. link to organization and reminder of monthly webcasts - notices listed in this blog under label/tag of dropout prevention.


Look for Georgia Public Broadcasting and the Georgia Graduation Stories blog at the 2008 Georgia School Public Relations Association Annual Conference (GSPRA), December 7-9.