Building a Thriving Virtual Community: Celebrating our Diverse-City

Description

KKIT staff discuss their successes and slip ups as they navigate through the new world of virtual learning in the time of two pandemics: COVID-19 and racism. Over the course of the last nine months, KKIT has leaned into three guiding concepts: Culturally Responsive Sustaining Education (CRSE), shifting our priorities and investing in people. These guiding principles have helped us transform our program from a stagnant online orchestra with dwindling participation to a thriving online community with new students enrolling each month. Throughout the session, we will ask participants to engage in self reflection and honest assessment of their current programming. By exploring how CRSE empowers youth and meets community needs, we challenge participants to reflect on how a commitment to CRSE could positively impact and shape their programs. We will discuss the necessity of examining and shifting priorities to ensure programs are not trying to force an old model to work in a new reality. We will present an example of shifting priorities by discussing the change in focus we made at KKIT from musical growth to social-emotional growth and holistic support.

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