The Carver

View Original

Carver's 84th Public Annual Meeting of the Board of Directors

Carver CEO Novelette Peterkin looks on as Stephanie Thomas, a freshman legislator from Norwalk, the newly elected CT Secretary of the State, and a longtime Carver volunteer, greeted our Annual Meeting gathering

We invite the public annually to the Annual Meeting of Carver’s Board of Directors. A new board is constituted at this meeting. Each board committee leader presents the outcomes of the last fiscal year (2021-2022). We discuss new business. And we celebrate our staff, volunteers, partners, and donors and greet old and new friends.

Here is the Annual Meeting Report.

Here is the message our CEO Novelette Peterkin gave from the podium.

Thank you for being a vital part of the Carver community.

Carver was founded in 1938 as a supportive community in a new industrial age. Carver remains more committed than ever to its first principles in this new age that requires us to rethink assumptions about education.

New upheavals in our common world require vigilance and innovation. We address pandemic learning loss with intensive, personalized interventions and project-based learning. We are balancing goals for our youth to achieve college degrees with K-12 workforce development education that leads to in-demand jobs. We remain committed to our goal that every child progresses to the next grade on time and is well prepared for the work ahead.

Our namesake George Washington Carver persevered against all odds. We do the same. Our annual budget doubled over the last two years, and we are discussing today with new school districts how Carver might help them meet their goals.

This may still be the early years of Carver’s important work. All our successes last year and the years before prepared us for this moment when Carver is needed more than ever.

All of you have seen the headlines. Pandemic-era learning loss is a national emergency. Catching up an entire generation of students is among the most pressing tasks facing leaders at every level of government today. Key to helping our children learn is giving them more time to learn, which is exactly what Carver is the best at providing. Schools and communities will be investing more and more in after-school enrichment programs and expanded summer school.

The school calendar drawn in the 1900’s is outdated. Still committed to our values and principles established in 1938, Carver is here to provide unique solutions that meet the challenges our nation faces today.

Thank you for being such a vital part of our journey.