Happy Birthday Sarah Stevens, Founding Partner of the Core Collaborative Learning Network!
It is Sarah’s birthday today. We are so thrilled that she was born. As luck would have it – our values and energy aligned and the universe decided that we were going on an epic adventure together seven years ago. This has been no ordinary adventure – she helped found The Core Collaborative as a client and then we begged her to join forces to amplify our vision of building a culture of belonging and efficacy to schools and systems globally by expanding student and teacher agency through collaborative inquiry.
Our Collective Mission
Our mission is ambitious and we bring our goals to life by living and practicing our core dispositions: compassion, empathy, patience, openness, communicating with clarity, active listening, perseverance and lots of creativity. We are a small team, but thanks to Sarah’s leadership, we believe we can accomplish anything we set our collective minds to. We also work with lots of love – love for each other, love for our schools and love for public education.
Sarah models this love with every action she takes. We have grown from offering two personalized learning pathways for schools to sixteen learning pathways. We partner with over 1500 learning organizations that range from schools, county and regional centers, nonprofits, universities, state departments and other professional learning providers from across the USA and abroad. The positive impact we have is largely due to Sarah’s leadership and laser like focus on relational trust.
Collective Impact
Sarah is always looking out for how to positively impact others. Constantly thinking about my schedule and my stress, she is always looking out for me and also nurtures our TCC internal team, our 65 consultants and of course the kids that our network serves through job-embedded professional learning.
Sarah is flexible! Her role as the National Director of Professional Learning has evolved over the past six years. Just six years ago we were a company of two, then Sarah joined and we had three full time partners – including me. We now have 12 full time partners and 4 part time team members.
Sarah has contributed and influenced every person on our team. She has literally helped create, lead, manage and organize EVERY aspect of our growing learning network (marketing, social media, sales, conference planning, content development, consultant PD, school and system PD, editor for Mimi and Todd, web designer, copy editor, etc.).
Sarah truly is the MacGyver of The Core Collaborative.
If your school partners with The Core Collaborative…you know Sarah. Her kindness, compassion, creativity and innovative spirit is impossible to miss. She is not only brilliant – she is also loyal. Sarah is loyal to public education and public educators.
She cares for the kids we serve like they are her own.
Perseverance is CORE at the CORE
Since this has been an adventure of an epic scale, we have shared many ups and downs of growing a small business that strives to make a positive difference in the world by serving educators.
TCC, like every small business in America, had the rug pulled out from underneath us due to Covid – but we have innovated thanks to the technical expertise of Sarah. This struggle has brought our team closer together and we have been more mission driven thanks to the relationships that Sarah has developed over time.
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Dream Big
More importantly, Sarah is a great friend. As I sit here reflecting on the last seven years, I am grateful for having her in my life every day. Sarah is family to Tony, me and the boys. She accepts us for who we really are – warts and all – and I have a lot of warts.
We all collectively suffer from “big dream syndrome”. We have big dreams and we are never satisfied with our impact. Most of our big dreams have a positive impact because of the work that happens behind the dream.
What many don’t see is that Sarah is leading, orchestrating and revising as we bring our dream to life.
Happy Birthday Sarah
Please help me wish Sarah a safe, healthy and joyful birthday! We are so glad that the universe brought us together seven years ago. My heart is full and I am one of the luckiest people on the planet to have a friend and colleague like Sarah.
With Love and Admiration,
Paul
CEO and Founder
The Core Collaborative Learning Network
