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Alignment Collaborative for Education - ACE

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Alignment Invites Students and Parents to University Forums

Alignment Collaborative for Education invites students and parents to university forums featuring 12 different universities for the Fall Semester. Each forum offers parents and students the opportunity to visit virtually with university admission staff along with a Q&A session.

Learn about the admissions application process, financial aid and scholarship offerings. Available for students and parents.

September 30, 2021
6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
DePaul University, Judson University,
Northern Illinois University, University of llinois at Urbana/Champaign
Register Here

October 13, 2021
6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Illinois State University, Roosevelt University,
University of Illinois, Chicago University of Iowa
Register Here

October 28,2021
6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Aurora University, Loyola University,
Purdue University, Southern Illinois University
Register Here

Sponsored by the Alignment Collaborative for Education and School District U-46
Download the flyer

Alignment Collaborative Selected as Featured Charity

Alignment Collaborative Selected as Featured Charity
Bear Family and City of Elgin Police Softball Game
September 13, 2021, 6:00 to 8:00 pm

Alignment is excited to be the featured charity for the Bear Family and Elgin Police Charity Softball Game rescheduled for September 13th from 6:00 to 8:00 pm at the Elgin Sports Complex.  Our partners, the Bear Family and the City of Elgin Police, will donate all proceeds from concessions and the 50/50 raffle to Alignment’s work in our schools and the community.

Your donation via our website of just $10 to the 50/50 Raffle benefits our earliest learners and our middle and high school students as they prepare for academic and career success. Raffle tickets will also be available at the event.

We look forward to seeing you!

StoryWalks Bring Books Outside in Elgin

StoryWalks
Lauryn Ellis, 3, of Elgin reacts to a page while taking a StoryWalk with her mom Felicia at Lords Park in Elgin on Thursday. The Elgin Partnership for Early Learning and Alignment Collaborative for Education have used a grant to make bilingual StoryWalks they can deploy around town. The StoryWalks are deconstructed picture books on signs and kids walk from one page to the next. One side of the sign is English and the other Spanish. (Rick West | Daily Herald Staff Photographer)

A new program in Elgin makes it possible for kids to enjoy the outdoors and read a book at the same time.

The Elgin Partnership for Early Learning (EPEL) and Alignment Collaborative for Education hosted their first StoryWalk on Thursday at Lords Park. The StoryWalk features a picture book broken down by pages and mounted on metal frames along a path. Kids walk from page to page to read the story. The book is offered in English on one side and Spanish on the other.

“The thing I like about a StoryWalk is that it’s an innovative way to explore literature and not just your regular book,” said Amber Peters, executive director of EPEL. “It gets you out in nature, which I think is important for kids because you learn through being outside and in the community.”

EPEL is a nonprofit organization working to ensure children have access to quality early care and education in Elgin and the surrounding neighborhoods. It partners with other area stakeholders to provide resources, early childhood initiatives, information, and support for families and providers for children under 5 years of age.

Four stories were chosen by the Gail Borden Public Library to use on the StoryWalks, each with about 18 pages. Peters said the library chose stories that were culturally and linguistically responsive and inclusive, while offering readers colorful pages to interact with while building critical kindergarten reading skills and boosting brain development.

Reaching young kids before they start their formal schooling is important, said Kathleen Cox, director of early learning for Elgin Area School District U-46. She also sits on EPEL’s board.

“Eighty-five percent of a child’s brain development happens before their fifth birthday, so the more work the school district does partnering with child care providers to get the same message out about language development and social skills, the stronger all of our kids are going to be when they come in to school.”

Copyright issues prevented EPEL from using reproductions of the pages, so they bought a couple of copies of each book and broke them down, laminated the pages and mounted them on boards that are inserted in the frames that can be stuck in the grass. The program is funded by a collaborative partner grant written to Making Kane County Fit for Kids, Kiwanis of Elgin, and Elgin Township.

The plan is to have story walks where their audience is already gathered, be it block parties, city events, or, like Thursday, near a Gail Borden story time at Lords Park Zoo. Peters said people can reserve the StoryWalk materials for family parties or school events. “They’re for the community to use,” she said.

Peters said StoryWalks is a perfect fit for EPEL’s “learning on the go” model.

“These movable story walks allow us to relocate them to different locations during the year,” she said. “Anywhere you go, there’s opportunity to learn. It’s just a matter of you engaging the child.”

By Rick West
Original story appeared in the Daily Herald 8/6/2021 5:08 PM


City of Elgin Summer Interns Enhance Employability Skills

Throughout this summer, 15 students from the City of Elgin are participating in an internship with the City. The students will be working on municipal assignments and other projects related to STEM. In addition to their summer internships with the City, the Gail Borden Public Library (GBPL) and Alignment offered a workshop for resume development and review and mock interviews with local HR professionals. 

On behalf of Alignment, we’d like to offer our gratitude to the City of Elgin and the GBPL for their support and providing work-based learning opportunities for the students of the community. 

“Learning on the Go” Summer 2021

Alignment Collaborative for Education "Learning on the Go" Summer 2021

Alignment and EPEL, in partnership with School District U-46, kicked off the Summer Learning on the Go program the week of June 7th.  The program has grown to five locations and takes place from 10:30 am to 12:30 pm with weekly early educational activities in all locations, along with food distribution to families.  The weekly schedule includes:

Monday – Buena Vista Neighborhood & Cornerstone Park
Tuesday – Parkwood Elementary School
Wednesday – River’s Landing Neighborhood
Thursday – Century Oaks Elementary School

Nancy Coleman, Alignment’s Executive Director is excited about the growth in the programs this summer. “Through our partnership with EPEL, their early education experts are serving roughly 120 kids per week, across all five locations. Our goal is to provide engaging educational opportunities that will prepare and get the children excited about learning and the upcoming school year.” School District U-46’s Food Services has also been highly supportive, distributing family food boxes each week at Buena Vista, Parkwood, River’s Landing and Century Oaks.  Cornerstone is benefiting from the City of Elgin Parks Program and food services from the Northern Illinois Food Bank.

The program in all five parks will continue through the end of July.  Both Alignment and EPEL greatly appreciate the grant received from Elgin Township to help fund this program for the children of our community.  

Alignment’s Goals in Support of U-46 Equity Plan

Alignment - Equity Plan word cloud

For the 2021-22 school year, Alignment has three specific organizational goals that shape its program priorities and resource implementation in support of School District U-46’s Equity Plan to include:

Goal 1: Provide a central role in facilitating community leaders and organizations coming together to address common community challenges at the local, state, and national levels.

Goal 2: Encourage community organizations to convene together as collaborations where the strengths of the various organizations are maximized to address current and future challenges facing communities.

Goal 3: Retain and grow Alignment’s leadership capacity and volunteer expertise in the community utilizing team structures to identify and deploy leaders that represent the community and school’s composition specifically related to race, culture, career preparation, and geographical location.

These three goal statements direct how Alignment supports the students and families of U-46 to enhance learning experiences for all children and youth of the greater Elgin community.  Central to being able to provide that support is the ability of Alignment to bring together organizations and individuals that are diverse and understand the community’s challenges, which impact the ability of the community currently and in the future to achieve greater equity. 

Examples include how we address the preparation of our community’s early education and elementary age children best utilizing resources at the local to national levels.  It also directs Alignment’s work with these organizations and the community’s mental health professionals to ensure that children and youth benefit from a safe and supportive environment during school and while in after school programs.  These programs must model a trauma informed care culture that works with children, youth and their families to foster resiliency especially in the areas of our community that have the largest equity gaps and underserved populations. 

As the community works to ensure a future workforce prepared to successfully live and work in the community, that preparation must begin as early as the elementary grades escalating that work with middle and high school students.  The work must prepare them for academic and career success leading to financial security, but it also must develop within them the necessary social and emotional competencies to be contributing members of the community embracing diversity, inclusion, and shared progress.