Join Shadow Project's Community Advisory Board this Winter

Save to Favorites

Are you a parent, guardian, teacher, or community member that is concerned with providing high quality education for children with learning challenges?

Have you been personally affected, or are you a young person that has experienced the challenges of receiving equitable and accessible resources to aid your educational success?

Do you have specific knowledge, skills, talents, or a motivation to be more invested in the educational achievement of children in your community?

If so, we invite you to join The Shadow Project’s Community Advisory Board.

THE SHADOW PROJECT accelerates K-8 special education student reading proficiency, engagement, motivation, and persistence through our programs Goal Setting, SuperSensory Spaces, and Reading Mentors. Last year, Shadow Project Community Advisory Board members weighed in on:

• Program development
• Content creation
• Fundraising
• Research

This year, we envision the Community Advisory Board being involved with:

• Continued development of our newly adapted virtual programming
• Fundraising, soliciting networks for in-kind donations for student incentives
• Getting the word out about our programs
• Creating content: informational videos, webinars, and conversations with experts - check out some of the webinars and informational videos we produced this summer on the Shadow Project YouTube page

IMPACT:
Our June program evaluation showed that special education teachers know our program works, reporting 69% of students increased their ability to engage in distance learning, and 82% increased 1-2 grades in reading proficiency.

A CRISIS WITHIN A CRISIS: 80% of Oregon’s children with disabilities did not meet reading standards before COVID-19. Now these promising but under-supported students are predicted to "regress even more," according to the Education Civil Rights Alliance. Lifelong negative impacts on their learning and wellbeing are expected to be profound, especially for Black, Latinx and Indigenous students with disabilities, who face the double barriers of ableism and racism and who comprise 35% of the students we serve. For students of color with disabilities, this is a crisis within a crisis.

We have been profoundly impacted by calls for racial justice, and will deepen our work to support this movement. We will seek to advance equity for BIPOC students and communities of color by partnering with schools that have shared interest in ending systemic inequity through trauma-informed, strengths-based approaches. We will strengthen our collaboration with BIPOC educators, parents, and community members to prioritize the voices of those who have long been ignored as leaders for change.

Commitment:
As part of our commitment to advancing equity for diverse learners, we work to recruit and retain a diverse staff, volunteers, and board-one that welcomes and engages people with diverse, intersectional identities. We encourage and support applicants from all backgrounds to join us in our work. This includes -- but is in no way limited to -- people experiencing disability, BIPOC individuals, and LGBTQIA2S+.

The Community Advisory Board typically meets (virtually) three times a year. Our new CAB cohort met in October 2020, and we are about to schedule our schedule 2nd fiscal year meeting for mid-February. We are excited to welcome new members to the Board! Our work will focus on maintaining the objectivity and comprehensiveness of Shadow programming.

Benefit:
Board membership provides an opportunity to contribute in a multi-faceted and co-creative environment, connect with like-minded people, gain advocacy experience, collaborate in non-profit work, refine leadership skills, and expand the mission of helping underserved children on a broader scale.

**Please let us know if you are interested in receiving more information to join this Board by completing this short survey (https://tinyurl.com/y4scefrc). Also, please feel free to forward this opportunity to anyone you think may be interested in joining.**

We look forward to hearing from you! Thank you!

As part of our commitment to advancing equity for diverse learners, we work to recruit and retain a diverse staff, volunteers, and board-one that welcomes and engages people with diverse, intersectional identities. We encourage and support applicants from all backgrounds to join us in our work. This includes -- but is in no way limited to -- people experiencing disability, BIPOC individuals, and LGBTQIA2S+.