Three Steps to a Perfect Community Partner Breakfast | E178

Imagine kick-starting your day with a purposeful gathering that could shape the future of education in your community. That's what we're serving up on today's episode, as we lay out a blueprint for creating a community partner breakfast that brings local professionals and schools together. We're taking a deep look into the 'why' of these events, discussing how they can enrich educational experiences with real-world perspectives and offer students career insights that textbooks just can't provide. 

I'll share a smorgasbord of strategies for engaging community partners effectively. From choosing the perfect setting and time to leveraging the influence of respected community figures.. You'll learn why showcasing student projects can be a game-changer, and I'll let you in on how coaching students to present with confidence can make your event unforgettable. This episode isn't just about planning an event; it's about building bridges between education and the community that stand the test of time. Tune in to discover how you can play a pivotal role in this transformative movement.


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Transcript

Ryan Steuer: 0:00

Welcome to the PBL Simplified Podcast. Today I'm giving you three steps to a perfect community partner breakfast. We've done these before. We know how to do it. We know how to build your community partner list for your district. There is a process and we know it works.

Ryan Steuer: 0:17

You've tuned into the PBL Simplified Podcast. I'm your host, ryan Stoyer, the Chief Inspiration Officer here at Magnify Learning, and I'm here for movement makers just like you. We want to help you start your PBL movement. We want to help you grow your PBL movement. We want to help you sustain your PBL movement. Our vision is that in three years of working with us, you don't need us anymore in a sustained fashion. We'll stay connected. We'll get you resources and those kind of things. After three years you have PBL certified teachers on your staff. You're training your new hires. You're bringing innovation. Your coaches know where to coach because they can do a needs assessment for you. They can figure out what the right thing to do is. Your leadership team is guiding you. Every three years you're adjusting that three-year plan and after three years it's gravy. You might be a model school for us and we're gonna bring schools to you to see. Maybe they're great.

Ryan Steuer: 1:09

Community partner breakfast that you're holding because you watched this episode or you're listening to this episode and you've got it down. You've got community partners coming in to your district k-12. You've always got somebody that's at the ready to be an authentic audience. You've got some. You've got a biologist. You've got somebody from DNR. You've got somebody that's at the ready to be an authentic audience. You've got some. You've got a biologist. You've got somebody from DNR. You've got somebody from the local children's museum. You've got somebody that's a first responder that comes in. You've got a community out there that is supporting your school because you've given them an on-ramp to do so.

Ryan Steuer: 1:40

So what are the three keys to a perfect community partner breakfast? Before we get into the first three, we've got to talk about the why. We always bring the why to the forefront at Magnify Learning. It's super important because our work is not easy. It's important. So we need as much why as we can around here to keep us going. It's like motivation biscuits right, you got to keep eating them to keep going. Zig. Ziglar says that. He says you know, some people say motivation doesn't last, zig, and he says right, staying clean doesn't either. So just like we recommend that you bathe daily, we recommend. That motivation comes daily and hopefully this podcast and our YouTube channel is helping to do that for you. It's keeping you fired up.

Ryan Steuer: 2:19

But what's your why for a community partner breakfast? Your why is that you want the real world in your school. You want community partners that have the jobs, the positions that you want your learners to know about and to have are coming into your school. Your kindergartners are talking to a chef or an engineer. Your seniors your juniors and seniors are presenting senior projects or they're maybe they're doing an internship at a local industry partner, so they know what it looks like. You know they're talking to a pharmacist, so that they know I don't want to be a pharmacist, right? I know of a kid that went to Purdue that got a pharmacy degree and then found out that he hated being a pharmacist. That's an $80,000 mistake, right? Like we need our kids to have some experience before they have to pick. They need to have experiences, failures and wins with us in a safe environment, in our K-12 environment, before they're picking majors, before they're committing to a particular path, and they're going to get both sides. They're going to say I really enjoyed this work and I enjoyed talking to that nurse or I enjoyed talking to the first responder. That's work I want to do or it's work I don't want to do. I'm going to cross it off the list.

Ryan Steuer: 3:33

So you probably have a long list of your why for a community partner breakfast, and you should actually write this out because it's important to have that and communicate that with your staff. But what we really want to do is we want to flip the script on that a little bit, because for the perfect community partner breakfast, your community partners need to know why they're coming. So what's their why? Now, the first thing you would do, if you're really good at this, is you would find a close community partner. You're going to run this all by them after you've taken some notes on this podcast and you say, hey, here's what we're thinking about doing every quarter.

Ryan Steuer: 4:03

Why would you come to this? Or why would you not come to this? Like, what would make this awesome for you? Like, go do some field research, just like you want your learners to do, and figure out. Why can you partner would would come to this? Alright, but let me give you a cheat sheet, because we already know some of the things that happen.

Ryan Steuer: 4:20

Why does it? Can be partner want to come. Same reason they want to be in a classroom. They want to come. Same reason they want to be in a classroom. They want to give back to schools. They want to give back to the next generation. So that's how you want to frame it. Hey, insurance salesman that's in our town, that's an important person. Hey, head of Rotary, right, that brings together all these business people. We would love for you to come into our school so we can show you the great things that we're doing and get feedback from you. We want our learners to graduate and be working for you and with you. What are the skills you need them to have?

Ryan Steuer: 4:51

Come to our community partner breakfast. Would you give back to us and to our kids? Yes, yes, I will. The answer is always yes. And now we have to hear let's get into our three things for the perfect community partner breakfast. Cause number one is time and place and food. So the time I love Friday morning, right.

Ryan Steuer: 5:13

Friday morning, friday's, in a traditional workplace is a place where things are often a little slower. Right, people are wearing jeans because it's casual Friday. So if they come into your school at eight or nine and they're late to work, that's fine, right, they've already set that up. Hey boss, once a quarter, I'm going to be in late because I'm going to go give back to the school system. Is that okay? It's like, well, yes, it is. Or maybe you have some entrepreneurs or nonprofit leaders that you know kind of control their own schedule in a lot of ways. They happy to carve out this time.

Ryan Steuer: 5:45

So, once a quarter friday morning, have some breakfast right and have some things like get some nice things. It doesn't have to be like a hot catered piece, right, it's. Maybe it's donuts or bagels or something healthier. Get some fruit. If you have a great catering department, grab some san pellegrino. People love the bubble water, right, get them some bubble water. Go ahead and get some pop. Some people are going to drink a Coke for breakfast. You know we're not judging them right now. Right, you might've. Anyway, get some coffee, have coffee. Don't, don't do this without coffee. It's not perfect if you don't have coffee right, and we're talking about the perfect community partner breakfast. So you got to have coffee. That's number one. So time, place and food it's going to be once a quarter Friday morning. Have some food ready, all right.

Ryan Steuer: 6:31

Number two you are going to have a few community partners that are known entities. These are people that are already giving back to your learners. Maybe they're already in your schools or they're a voice for you, like a sounding board. If you don't have these, these people, you need to get a couple right. You need to get a couple. You need to be talking to me. Partners. Go to a rotary meeting and they're gonna get talk to ten people that own businesses. They're interested in service, and you're gonna say, hey, we're going to start a community partner breakfast. I'd like somebody as a sounding board. You're going to get that person right. Take them out to breakfast. Right then. Hey, can I take you out to breakfast? It'll work, guaranteed right? So you need a couple of known entities. You need people that are fighting for you. Let me give you an example.

Ryan Steuer: 7:13

Ran a community partner breakfast and meeting when I was in the classroom and we had something different. Like sure was in in the classroom and we had something different. Like sure maybe. I opened up, some of the teachers talked about what we were doing, but then we had a community partner come up and she talked about her story in the classroom and that blew everybody away because she actually cranked it up a notch and Dr Bush, who analyzes DNA for the state police department. So it's like, okay, we're all listening because your job is awesome.

Ryan Steuer: 7:42

And she'd been in the classroom. She talked to us about DNA, she talked to us about genetics and she started talking to me. Partner said you need to be in this classroom. You need to be investing in the next generation. If we don't do it, who's going to do it? And she gives this speech in a way that I never could as a teacher in the classroom, in a way that you can't as a principal, and you can give an inspiring speech. I am all for telling your own story, I'm all for being inspiring, but she did like a strict call to action. You need to get your name on this list and you need to make it a priority. And it was. She had street cred, though, right, like she could say this because I've been in the classroom. Yeah, I have a very intense job. I work for the State Department, right, and studying DNA, and I took time out of my schedule to get in this classroom. So why don't you? And everybody was like whoa, was that okay? But it totally was.

Ryan Steuer: 8:32

All our community partners jumped in because it wasn't us selling our school right, it was a community partner selling the process and the give back to our kids. So get some known entities. That's number two right. Number one was right time, right place, right food. Number two is get a known entity, community partner, that can come in and speak with you and for you. The third one hopefully this is obvious. You knew it was coming, but it's not always so.

Ryan Steuer: 8:57

If it's going to be perfect, then your community partners are going to hear from kids. They're going to hear from the learners themselves and if you're going to do this as a district which is a great way to launch this you're going to have some elementary learners there. You're going to have some middle school learners there, you're going to have some high school learners there and they're going to talk about some amazing things that they're doing right. You're going to have, you know, a kindergartner or a third grader talk and your community partners are going to understand that they're younger kids, younger learners, and they're going to give them grace if they're not perfect they're probably not perfect, but they're going to bring in some things right.

Ryan Steuer: 9:32

So as soon as I walk in as a community partner, I'm going to see some of the end products that they've created. Right, I'm going to see some tangible things around the room. So maybe they went to the local zoo and they created gosh, what do you call them? The things that you give a tiger right To mess around with to keep the animals active? I forget the word now. I've presented on this before, right, but your kids can actually create the enhancements that go into different exhibits at the zoo, right? So those are gonna be there and it's gonna be like here's what the tiger used, here's what the ferrets used, here's what the the mink used and here's what the reptiles used. And they're gonna be there and it's gonna look cool because you are, you are looking for an experience for a community partner.

Ryan Steuer: 10:16

Why? Because when the community partner leaves, they're gonna go tell a story. They're gonna tell your story. You're going to give them all the content for the story that they're going to tell. They're going to talk about what elementary school kids do at the zoo. They're going to talk about the advocacy that your high schoolers are doing for food deserts and why it's not right in their neighborhoods, and how they're interacting with politicians. They're going to go tell these important stories that you're telling. They're going to tell a story about how they were taken care of well, at this community partner breakfast.

Ryan Steuer: 10:50

And now, just like you had Dr Bush, a community partner telling your story, now you have all these community partners telling your story to people at the soccer game, to people that they're working at the insurance, at their insurance place. Right, all these stories are being told and you're not telling them. Other people are telling them. They're now saying good things behind your back. Wouldn't that be nice for a change? But you have to give them the stories and the experience. So let me give you a bonus. So I gave you three. Number one find the right time, the right place, the right food. Number two have some known entities. Have some people in there that you know are going to interact and be excited to be there. Number three you're going to show them kids. You're going to create an experience.

Ryan Steuer: 11:31

The bonus one is you're going to prepare the kids for this. This is going to be a presentation for them. And what do we do? We practice for presentations. Right, they're going to practice what they're going to say. You're not going to send them in cold. Please don't do that. They're awesome, but they'll freeze. They won't be as great as they could be. You don't have to tell them exactly what to say, but they need to practice so they don't freeze. When they get there right, you're going to tell them why it's important. You're going to tell them why people are there. You're going to give these kids a free breakfast and they're going to be fired up about it. They get to miss first period because they're going to go eat food and talk to people. It's going to make them feel really important. So they're going to dress up, they're going to practice and you're not going to have all the perfect kids there. You're going to have a representation of your school district Once all the kids leave, if you want.

Ryan Steuer: 12:20

I've got one district that does this, others do as well, but I have one that specifically does this. After all the kids leave, they'll look at the community partners and say which of those learners has a special ed designation and they'll look around. Well, I don't know. They all spoke really intelligently, exactly, exactly. We're reaching all of our learners at every level. That's what project-based learning does. We're differentiating, we're doing workshops, kids are learning, growth is happening. That's what happens with project-based learning. That's why we have you here.

Ryan Steuer: 12:55

We need you to bring the authenticity so that our learners get fired up and that they learn these real world skills that you have and you want our learners to have. If you would, would you sign up on this sign up sheet and this quarter, as projects come up, we're going to reach out to you to see where you can be an authentic audience for our learners when they're presenting. We're going to reach out to you to see if you can come and teach a workshop based on your expertise. We want to let you know the great things that are happening the next quarter so that you can jump in and you can be a part of these stories. Oh and, by the way, you'll notice there's a blank there. Who else should be here? Who else should we invite or who else could you invite that should be at this community partner breakfast, because you know that they care about the next generation, because they can add value to these kids, and once you do this, they're in.

Ryan Steuer: 13:48

You've set up the experience, you've prepared your kids, you've given stories to your community partners that they never would have had otherwise. Somebody's going to tell your story, and it should be you, and now it can be you through community partners. It's incredibly powerful. This is why you need to have the perfect community partner breakfast now. Will it be perfect the first time? Probably not, right. We're always gonna reflect and try to get better. But I can tell you right now that if you take these three steps, plus the bonus, you are going to be real close to a perfect community partner breakfast. And as you do this, as a district, you're going to start to build out your community partner list as you have needs. You can reach out and say, hey, we could really use a biologist for this. Does anybody know anybody? And now you're leveraging this network that you've created of people in your town surrounding you that care about your school and see it as a positive place, and they're telling positive stories.

Ryan Steuer: 14:44

Doesn't that sound awesome? Doesn't that sound awesome? And some of you are thinking, yeah, but we're a small country school or we're in the city and there's so many schools that community partners are spread out. Can I just tell you that this works? Can I just get you to try it? Run it by a couple of community partners that you know. Run it by your brother-in-law, run it by somebody. Say, hey, if I just invited you once a quarter, would you come to this on a Friday morning? Yes, they come. They come every single time. All right, it will work for you. You'll have community partners coming out of the woodwork that you didn't even know existed or that could come and help you. It's going to be fantastic. It's good for your teachers, it's good for your administrators, it's great for your kids. Everybody wins because it's like why are we doing this? Well, because we're doing something that's really important. It's important for you in the school, it's important for our community. It's a big deal the work that you're doing in school. It just goes through the roof, right.

Ryan Steuer: 15:39

So start this early. If you're listening and you're like a PBL jumpstart, like you just did your first one, you can still do a community partner breakfast. Tell people we just started. Look at the stuff we've already got. We're excited to see where we're going. We really need you on the bus with us. Be real open and transparent. People will jump in.

Ryan Steuer: 15:58

So figure out how to run your community partner breakfast right. Go out and do this. If you need some help, please reach out. We'd be happy to help you. Remember, we've got the in-person conference coming up. We can absolutely set up a piece for you to get your community partner breakfast set up. We could actually do it in the virtual as well. Just make it a need to know. Or again, you can just reach out individually. We'd be happy to help you do this. These are game changers for your school and your district. So get out there and do it. This is how you start a movement. It's not just you as the leader pulling people along. You need to build momentum. That means in your school and outside of your school, you can do this and as you do it, your vision just starts getting pushed along and you're not pulling anymore and you're starting to see momentum. You're starting to see things fall into place and it's absolutely amazing. I'm excited to hear about your community partner win. Make sure that you go to pblsharecom, pblsharecom and share your community partner breakfast win with me, and I'll share it here on the podcast. Until then, go out and lead inspired.

Ryan Steuer: 17:05

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the PBL simplified podcast. I appreciate you and honor that you tune in each week. Would you please take two minutes to leave a rating and a review? When you leave a review, it lets the next person know that this is a podcast worth listening to when they go into their player and search project-based learning and PBL Simplified popped up. When they see those reviews, they know that high quality visionary leaders are listening, so they tune in too and they can find their way into the PBL journey. Thank you so much for leaving a review. Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate you.