A teacher helping a student

Connecting with community educators

Explore resources designed to help educators and school leaders identify, connect with and incorporate community educators into educator teams.

Who are community educators?

Community educators are youth-serving professionals and volunteers who provide capacity and insight in service of deepening and personalizing student learning. They enrich learning environments by forging authentic relationships, sharing expertise and expanding networks. In Next Education Workforce models, community educators connect as part of educator teams, where they leverage their knowledge and skills to complement the work of professional educators.

About this collection

These resources are designed to support schools and educator teams as they build out their community educator pipelines. Additional resources are available to help educator teams meaningfully incorporate community educators into learning environments.

Resources

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5 tips for community educators preparing to enter the classroom and other learning spaces

These five tips will help community educators prepare and feel ready to enter any learning space, have a successful experience and make lasting, meaningful connections with learners. This resource expands on helpful tips around translating industry expertise, managing the learning space, working with students during the visit and more.
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Connecting with Community Educators

Community educators can be found simply by asking around your own social networks and community. However, there are also resources made specifically to locate and connect with industry experts who are ready to support your learning environment.
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Community educator asset map

An asset map is a visual way to identify resources within your community. The act of creating a map of expertise can help you discover connections you already have, organizations you’d love to know about, and talents and resources near your school or available virtually.
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Six tips for engaging a community educator

Explore this resource to learn six tips for engaging a community educator in schools, community-based organizations and anywhere that learning happens.
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New support roles for educator teams in online and hybrid settings

Who are the groups of adults that might be leveraged to support students? Explore the specific roles those adults might play in the learning space.