WHY WE'RE HERE

We have one thing in mind-- take care of Washington DC's public and public charter schools by sharing a mission with the District's arts and humanities community of practice-- advance equitable access to high quality arts and humanities learning opportunities for our public school students.

DC Co-lab is DC Arts & Humanities Education Collaborative's community collaboration and data initiatives, a community platform that facilitates collaborative actions and takes our collective impact to new heights. We remain an enthusiastic and integral part of the Kennedy Center's Ensuring the Arts to Any Given Child (AGC) national network simultaneously.

LET US TAKE CO OF YOU

You’ve been invited to embark on this new journey with us in which we redefine our community and take collaboration onto a new level.

DC Co-lab is of, by, and with our Community of Practice:

A community of practice is a group of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly. (Lave + Wenger)

arts and humanities organizations and cultural institutions
teaching artists and practitioners
students and parents of the DC public education system
school-based educators and administrators of the DC public education system

With the Co-lab, we seek to take co of our Community by:

contributing a portal for our community to garner and share useful feedback
convening for meaningful and relevant conversations
collecting data to help enhance strategic planning
communicating our community's reach, engagement, and collective impact
bridging further collaboration and partnership opportunities based on our shared mission

DC CO-LAB COMMITTEES

Our committees are one of the ways that we connect with our community of practice for collaboration, and the DC Co-lab is a tool to enhance collective impact.

Committees Structure:

Equity and Justice Committee

drives the community to center equity and defines what equitable access means.

Center Equity & Justice via Committee per community shared mission
Committee sets the tone by being the lens and filter, producing equity indicators, standards, etc
Identify and analyze equity gaps through data
Committee informs Education Programming Committee with ideas for actionable tasks
Provide feedback to EDU committee
Brainstorm open PD opportunities, events, workshops, webinars for the community

Education Programming Committee

supports actionable output derived from the analysis of the Equity and Justice Committee.

Take analysis from Equity & Justice Committee and vetting program content, supporting providers in our community of practice
Produce rubric based on equitable, high quality, relevant, culturally responsive, curriculum connected, age appropriate standards
Feed into DC Collaborative Education offerings as well
Brainstorm open PD opportunities, events, workshops, webinars for the community

Data Committee

grounds other committees with data and builds a data-driven and data-informed culture within the community. (Previously Assessment & Evaluation Committee)

Data Officers support and foster a data-informed and data-driven culture by sitting in on other committees
Data Officers are provided with PD through Co-lab’s Data Advisor and supplementary resources
Will still hold meetings on their own when needed
Brainstorm open PD opportunities, events, workshops, webinars for the community

Communication Committee

activates continuous updated communication between the different corners of our community. (Previously Steering Committee)

Committee comprises of all committee co-chairs and other Community Representatives, creating a roundtable of diverse and inclusive representations
Representatives and co-chairs share insight into all areas of Co-Lab's committee work, and provide external news and updates
Exchange ideas and bring forth larger events, workshops, PD, etc for the community

DC Collaborative

acts as the backbone support (see Collective Impact Conditions) of DC Co-lab and Committees.

Collaborative staff no longer participates as Co-Chairs, only as facilitators
We are the primary administrators of the platform
Provide strategic planning and execution of Committees infrastructure
Streamline collaborative effort and workflow
Partake in some decision-making, primarily for project management and to drive progress/ fulfill results
Support recruitment of committee members with the help of all co-chairs

We are continually in the process of incorporating our Accessibility, Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (AJEDI) values into all aspects of our work.