Summit Education Initiative

15 Days Away! 🎉

The countdown is on! In just 15 days, we'll come together to celebrate 30 years of SEI's impact, partnerships and commitment to student success. Join us on Thursday, October 15 as we honor three decades of progress and look ahead to what's next.

🎟️ Registration is open. Visit the link in our bio to learn more and reserve your seat.

We can't wait to celebrate with you! ✨

Meet Dr. Derrick C. Holifield, the Summit Education Initiative's 30th Anniversary Celebration Keynote Speaker! Dr. Holifield is an educator, cross-sector systems leader and strategist whose work focuses on creating stronger, more connected pathways for children, families and communities.

Drawing from his work in Cleveland and across the country, Dr. Holifield brings an educator's perspective and a powerful message about the importance of authentic youth voice and what becomes possible when young people are positioned as partners in shaping the systems designed to support them.

Join us October 15 as we celebrate 30 years of SEI's impact and have an engaging conversation on the future of student success in Summit County.

30 years of bringing educators, community leaders, businesses and partners together to advance student success! 🎉

Join us on Thursday, October 15th as we celebrate three decades of impact and look ahead to what’s next.

🎟️ Registration is open. Visit the link in our bio to learn more and reserve your seat.

In January 1996, leaders from the community joined together to create the framework that would become Summit Education Initiative.

The Founding Mission was to engage and mobilize, in an innovative manner, a broad base of people and resources to significantly improve education for all children in Summit County.

SEI has continued to evolve to reflect the educational needs of children and the community.

30 days to go! 🎉

In just 30 days, we will gather to celebrate 30 years of Summit Education Initiative's impact, partnerships and commitment to student success.

Join us on Thursday, October 15 as we honor three decades of progress and look ahead to what's next.

🎟️ Registration is open. Visit the link in our bio to learn more and reserve your seat.

We can't wait to celebrate with you! ✨

At Summit Education Initiative, one of our core roles is making education data accessible and actionable for our community.

That’s why we maintain public dashboards tracking student progress across key transition points - from kindergarten readiness through postsecondary success.

These dashboards are used by educators, nonprofit leaders, policymakers, and community partners to guide decision-making and improve outcomes.

We invite you to explore the data:

https://www.seisummit.org/our-data

Because when data is shared, impact is possible.

Recently, we hosted our Spring PK–8 Collaborative Breakfast, bringing together educators, community partners, and leaders from across Summit County who are committed to helping children thrive.

The PK–8 Collaborative serves as a space for partners to align efforts, learn from one another, and take action around two shared goals: increasing Kindergarten Readiness and ensuring more children are reading proficiently by third grade.

This year's conversation focused on early literacy and highlighted the bright spots happening across our community. Together, we explored the importance of strong early learning experiences, family engagement, relationship-building, and whole-child supports in helping children become confident, successful readers.

We are grateful to the schools and organizations that shared their successes, strategies, and resources. Real progress happens when communities work together, and we left inspired by the collective commitment to ensuring every child has the opportunity to succeed.

A special thank you to the Akron Zoo for hosting us and providing such a welcoming space for connection, learning, and collaboration.

As we wrap up another incredible year of the Summit County Youth Coalition, we are filled with pride for the student leaders who showed up, spoke up, and worked to create meaningful change in their schools and community. 💙

This year, our youth leaders gathered feedback from more than 1,000 of their peers, analyzed data, developed action plans, and presented recommendations to school and community leaders. Through their leadership, they demonstrated that young people are not just the future—they are powerful changemakers right now.

A special thank you to Akron Public Schools for their partnership and commitment to elevating student voice. Together, we are creating opportunities for students to help shape the systems that impact their lives.

To our student leaders: thank you for your courage, passion, and dedication. We hope you have a fun, restful, and well-deserved summer. We can't wait to see all that you accomplish next year! ☀️✨

Community voice in action.

At SEI, we believe meaningful change starts by listening—and grows when community voice helps shape decisions, strategies, and solutions.

Your voice doesn’t just matter. It drives the work forward.

Youth success doesn’t happen by chance—it happens by alignment.

SEI works across sectors to connect people, data, and action so that every student has the support they need to thrive.

When systems work together, outcomes improve.