Issue 1 | February 26, 2020
North State Together Version 2.0
North State Together was established in 2016 as a regional collective partnership funded by a $2.5 million dollar grant funded by The McConnell Foundation . As a result of the progress that has been made in the region, The McConnell Foundation awarded North State Together an 8-year multi-million dollar grant renewal. The grant allows us to continue to develop our regional cradle to career partnerships where leaders from education, business, philanthropic, nonprofit, civic, and faith communities join together to improve educational success for every child through a data-driven, collective impact approach. North State Together is the largest geographical collective in the U.S. covering 5 counties and over 20,000 square miles. As we move forward in this next phase of North State Together 2.0, we will continue to provide direct resources, data, and support to the five county networks:   Reach Higher Shasta ,  Expect More Tehama , Advancing Modoc Youth ,   Trinity Together Cradle to Career Partnership , and Cradle to Careers for Siskiyou . North State Together will support these partnerships with the goal to increase educational outcomes at all levels with ultimate impacts on the overall health and economic well-being of our communities.

Please enjoy the contents of our first newsletter for North State Together version 2.0. Our newsletters will feature our projects and our upcoming plans as well as spotlights on the county network initiative work and scalable best practices. On behalf of the North State Together backbone staff and advisory board, I want to thank you for your past and current support. We invite you to connect with us to learn how we can work together to accomplish your county network cradle to career goals. We are here to support you in your efforts in creating a better future for everyone!

Kevin O'Rorke
Chief Executive Officer
North State Together
County Network Spotlight
Reach Higher Shasta's School Attendance Campaign
Collective impact partnerships, such as the five county networks supported by North State Together, are comprised of multiple stakeholders. These partnerships have the opportunity to play a critical role in tackling the chronic absenteeism challenge. The collective impact model engages a wide range of stakeholders including educators, community members, families and students that can support the shared work of reducing chronic absenteeism and improving outcomes. By collectively decreasing our region’s chronic absenteeism rates, we will better prepare our children to successfully reach early learning milestones, increase high school graduation rates, and increase their overall quality of life – the very foundation of North State Together’s cradle to career mission.

Reach Higher Shasta's attendance campaign is designed to provide resources to help schools and community agencies promote positive school attendance.
Improving School Attendance - Reach Higher Shasta

School attendance has a tremendous impact on student learning and social connections. Recently, Shasta County educators created resources to help schools and community agencies promote positive school attendance including: *Public Service...

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reachhighershasta.com
Are our students ready for the K-12 Pipeline?
Ready (or Not) Here We Come!
North State Together is committed to improving outcomes in all areas along the cradle to career pipeline. A large body of research has shown that kindergarten readiness is a strong predictor of later academic achievement and school adjustment. Readiness assessments help our region understand how prepared our children are for kindergarten so that they can provide necessary supports to ensure all children are successful in elementary school and beyond.  

In early spring of 2019, North State Together and First 5 Shasta worked together to smoothly transition the Kindergarten Readiness Snapshot (KRS) operations to North State Together. The Fall 2019 Kindergarten Readiness Snapshot results are now available in a new interactive online format:



The North State Together backbone team is currently working diligently in conjunction with our software developer to have the KRS available via a web-based platform for the Fall 2020 assessment period. Previously, the assessment was only available on iOS. Watch the assessment in action in the video below.
Backbone Team Member Feature
Susan Schroth - North State Together

As the Operations Manager for North State Together, Susan Schroth is joined by a four-member team that provides backbone support to a five-county collective impact network: Expect More Tehama, Reach Higher Shasta, Trinity Together, Advancing...

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northstatetogether.org
North State Together Featured in Enjoy Magazine - North...

North State Together and each of the five county networks, Trinity Together Cradle to Career Partnership, Advancing Modoc Youth, Reach Higher Shasta, Cradle to Careers for Siskiyous, and Expect More Tehama along with our partner College Options...

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northstatetogether.org
KFOI 90.9 Radio Series - North State Together

North State Together and each of the five county networks, Trinity Together Cradle to Career Partnership, Advancing Modoc Youth, Reach Higher Shasta, Cradle to Careers for Siskiyous, and Expect More Tehama along with our partner College Options...

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northstatetogether.org
Shared Measurement: National Student Clearinghouse
Wed, Apr 22, 2020 7:30 AM PST
National Student Clearinghouse & Race to Rigor Training
Shasta County Office of Education Professional Development Center, Redding
Developing a shared measurement system is essential to collective impact. Collecting data and measuring results consistently on a short list of indicators at the county and regional level and across all participating organizations ensures that efforts remain aligned.  Shared measurement in the context of collective impact is “use of a common set of measures to monitor performance, track progress towards outcomes and learn what is and is not working in the group’s collective approach” (John Kania, FSG).

North State Together strives to have all of our high schools in our region participate in the National Student Clearinghouse StudentTracker® for High Schools by 2021. Participation allows our region to more accurately gauge the college success of our graduates, assess our college preparation efforts, and tailor our initiative efforts accordingly. North State Together is proud to team up with Riverside County Office of Education to put on this regional training event to learn from the expert end users how to get the most out of our National Student Clearinghouse reports.
2020 County Network Summit
Each year, we bring the county network teams together for a deep dive collaboration session. This year the collective impact teams will work on sharing best practices in the morning and in the afternoon they will learn communication strategies from our Hattaway Communications partner provided as part of our Lumina Talent Hub designation.
Mon, Mar 16, 2020 8:30 AM PST
2020 North State Together Annual Summit - Connect, Collaborate, Contribute
The McConnell Foundation, Redding
With Gratitude to The McConnell Foundation
The McConnell Foundation is a private, nonprofit organization whose mission is to help build better communities through philanthropy. The McConnell Foundation has long been committed to increasing opportunities for children and youth of Modoc, Shasta, Siskiyou, Tehama, and Trinity counties. The North State Together backbone team and county collaborative network partners would like to thank The McConnell Foundation for investing long-term in our region through the North State Together collective impact cradle to career model to increase educational outcomes to ultimately improve the overall health and vitality of our communities.