EducateNKY has a mission. The local nonprofit is dedicated to rethinking education in Northern Kentucky.
The organization was launched in March of 2023. But before its leaders did anything, they decided to listen.
“Our researcher interviewed every superintendent in Northern Kentucky, many families, many parents, nonprofit leaders, Judges/Executives—a lot of people—and came up with these findings,” President and CEO of EducateNKY Tim Hanner said. “It wasn’t just about looking at data. It was really about working with people’s hearts.”
EducateNKY was created with the goal to to improve outcomes for all kids and their families by exploring and adopting innovative approaches to pre-K-12 education in Northern Kentucky. The idea is not to create programming, according to the nonprofit; rather, it is to scale programs and systems that already work.
To aid that mission, the organization recently completed a landscape assessment of all three counties to begin working on its five priorities: early learning, family engagement, mastery learning, exposure, and out-of-school-time and secondary options.
Hanner is a former teacher, principal and superintendent of Kenton County Schools. He joined the organization on July 1, 2023. He has been involved in education, nonprofits and working with businesses for 30 years. Hanner founded NaviGo College and Career Prep Services which has since merged to operate under Learning Grove.
The OneNKY Alliance, a group of local business leaders, launched EducateNKY.
When Hanner was asked to help build the organization, he said he wasn’t totally on board until he heard the focus, which is how to expand opportunities for kids in lower socio-economic areas in NKY.
President and CEO of the OneNKY Alliance Karen Finan said EducateNKY brings the opportunity for a systemic change to education in the region. She said people are embracing different concepts and becoming involved.
“Looking at the community and knowing and seeing the direct tie that education had on so many different decisions, it’s not just about education,” Finan said. “It’s about everything that comes after that, with workforce and quality of life and the types of companies we bring to this region and the types of companies that stay, and there was just such a direct, obvious line where we would win and where we would lose. Education was a driving force with that.”
Finan is serving on the EducateNKY Governance Board.
Governance board members
Chair Greg Fischer—Chairman, Fischer Homes
Vice Chair Jim Votruba—President Emeritus, Northern Kentucky University
Treasurer Jack Kenkel— Retired President, Victory Bank
Legal Counsel Matt Smith— Attorney-at-Law, Ziegler & Schneider, P.S.C
EducateNKY Advisor Gene Willhoit— Executive Director, Center for Innovation in Education
Catrena Bowman—Executive Director, NKY Community Action Commission
Garren Colvin—President & CEO, St. Elizabeth Healthcare
Normand Desmarais—Co-founder, Tier 1 Performance Solutions
Karen Finan—President & CEO, OneNKY Alliance
Tim Fogarty—CEO, WCM Holdings, Inc.
Robert Heil—CEO, KLH Engineers, Inc.
Alaria Long—PhD Student Representative, UC Irvine
Brian Neal—CEO, Accelerate Great Schools
Chuck Session—Executive in Residence, Northern Kentucky United Way
Chair of the EducateNKY Governance Board, Greg Fischer, said he got involved with the organization to help kids come out of school with better outcomes so they can be contributors to society.
“I’m not an expert, but I can run an organization pretty well,” Fischer said. “I don’t know the bare bones of education other than being a student. I knew we needed to reach out to other experts. There are a lot of people who have a lot to offer. What’s been exciting about this is there’s been a lot of community interest and a lot of alignment, and this is a great area to focus on.”
EducateNKY also has an advisory board of individuals across business, education and community leaders. While the governance board has worked on structuring the organization, the advisory council will help set the direction.
Advisory board members
Mike Borchers—Superintendent, Ludlow Independent Schools
Jay Brewer—Superintendent, Dayton Independent Schools
Greg Duty—Superintendent, Southgate Independent Schools
Alvin Garrison—Superintendent, Covington Independent Schools
Kendra McGuire—Superintendent, Diocese of Covington
Misty Middleton—Superintendent, Bellevue Independent Schools
Trish Miller—President, Notre Dame Academy
Tony Watts—Superintendent, Newport Independent Schools
Shelli Wilson—Superintendent, Campbell County Schools
Terri Rentrop—Head of School, Community Montessori
Jay Becker—Founder/President, BLDG
Amy Neal Bundy—Founder/President, Bingham Strategy Group
Bonita Brown—VP/Chief Strategy Officer, Northern Kentucky University
Joseph Chillo—President, Thomas More University
Mike Clines—State Representative, District 68
Brent Cooper—President/CEO, NKY Chamber of Commerce
Lee Crume—President/CEO, BE NKY Growth Partnership
Theresa Cruz—President/CEO, FIESTA NKY
Susan Douglas—CEO, Girl Scouts, KWRC
Correy Elmer—Associate Director, NKY Area Development District
Ginni Fair—Dean, College of Education , Northern Kentucky University
Fernando Figueroa—President, Gateway Community & Technical College
Sarah Giolando-Matlin—SVP/Chief Strategy Officer, St. Elizabeth Healthcare
Nancy Grayson—President/CEO, Horizon Community Funds of NKY
Tom Haggard—Executive Director, Kentucky Out-of-School Alliance
Carmen Hickerson—Independent Consultant, NKY Region
Bill Hogan—Director of Innovation, Boone County Schools
Jordan Huizenga—VP of Development, Beech Acres
Dave Knox—Executive Director, Blue North
Ross Meyer—VP Strategy, Interact for Health
Rosanne Nields—VP, Planning & Government Relations, St. Elizabeth Healthcare
Charle Peck—Consultant/Speaker, Thriving Educator, LLC
Mark Perkins—Principal Broker, Pivot Realty
Kristi Phillips—Director of Education Initiatives, Cincinnati Regional Business Committee
Randy Poe—President/CEO, Northern Kentucky Education Council
Jeff Sackenheim—President/CEO, SHP Architecture and Design
Dave Schroeder—Executive Director, Kenton County Library
Mike Sipple, Jr.—CEO, Talent Magnet Institute & Centennial
Melissa Hall Sommer—Senior VP, Brighton Center
Shannon Starkey-Taylor—CEO, Learning Grove
Stacie Strotman—Executive Director, Covington Partners
Amy Weber—Chief Impact Officer, United Way of Greater Cincinnati
Sandy Woodall—Executive Director/CEO, EC Learn
Jim Wulfeck—Partner, Center for Great Work Performance
Rick Wurth—CEO, CHNK Behavioral Health
“When you look at our advisory council, we’ve got the superintendent from the diocese schools, we have all the river city superintendents, we have a superintendent for Campbell County, but we also have business leaders,” Hanner said. “We have entrepreneurs, and these are people who are down here and really want to make a difference and want to know whether it’s something that’s innovative.”
Finan said it was very deliberate in terms of outreach to bring on the superintendents and as many educators as possible into EducateNKY. Business members and community leaders with a passion for education were also asked to participate. Finan said when Hanner was brought on, he brought in other areas of expertise to round out the council.
“Being able to bring these folks together to really have a respectful conversation I think that’s one of the things that we have stressed through the formation of all of this,” Finan said. “We may have differing viewpoints, but we should be able to be at the same table and talk through what is best for our community.”
Before EducateNKY could create a strategy or take action, it committed to an outside landscape assessment to understand Boone, Kenton and Campbell’s education systems. Cheye Calvo with C-Squared Strategies worked over the last seven to eight months on the assessment.
“I think that (landscape assessment) has proven to be very beneficial and, I think, groundbreaking for our community,” Finan said. “I don’t think there has been anything like this completed that I can find.”
Some of the findings in the EducateNKY landscape assessment were:
Northern Kentucky is a highly segregated community by income and by race.
“What’s happening right now with this inequality that exists the cost of living that prosperity that you are getting works for most people, but for people who were more in the middle, they’re feeling a strain right now that’s severely driven by the cost of housing but other things, but people who are on the margins and many cases are in crisis,” Calvo said. “So the inequality is being exacerbated by the economic pressures that affect different people differently.”
Northern Kentucky’s nonwhite teaching force is half of the state average, which Calvo said is pretty low and represents 1/10 of the students.
“If you’re looking to inspire kids, you need to build a teaching profession that is much more representative of the kids that are served,” Calvo said.
25% of graduating students aren’t ready for post-secondary life.
In NKY, 5% of kids don’t graduate from high school, and about 20% do not meet college or career-ready exams.
Middle school performance is outpacing the state on a decline.
NKY is seeing a 12.5-point drop in middle school performance over a decade when the state is a little less than nine.
Students who enter middle school academically face a much higher risk of absenteeism and behavioral challenges.
Chronic absenteeism is up 71% regionally since 2019 and increases most sharply in sixth grade. For the 2022-2023 school year, chronic absenteeism in sixth grade was 15.8%, seventh grade was 17.3%, eighth grade was 20.7% and ninth grade was 23.1%.
“Anything double digits in the school world, that is crisis level,” Calvo said. “You get to the high teens, you’re beyond crisis. This is a huge challenge, but we’re seeing it really jump in sixth grade, and then it continues into the 20th percentile in eighth grade and in high school. People are disconnecting. Kids are disconnecting, families are disconnecting from the system, and that also begins to manifest itself in behavior and safety events for kids.”
Five strategic priority areas have been created from the landscape assessment, and members from the advisory board will break into work groups that will meet one to two times per month over the next four months to give input on the direction the initiatives should take. The five priorities are early learning, family engagement, mastery learning, exposure and out-of-school-time and secondary options.
The intent is to have a strategic plan ready by July 1 upon completing the working group meetings.
“One thing that’s great about this is there’s so many people interested in it,” Fischer said. “It’s a good way to get a lot of collaboration and buy-in, and when we come out of this, we can align the resources and the people towards making it happen.”
Finan said that as the strategic plan becomes solidified, there will be areas in which people can become involved.
“I think as different elements of this grow out, there’ll be opportunities for other community members who maybe just want to do a small part of whatever the strategic plan is,” Finan said.
Hanner said the first question that’s going to be asked at each work team meeting is, “Whose voice is missing?” He said that as EducateNKY looks to improve family engagement, parents need to be involved. As they work on mastery learning and the different ways children learn, they need to engage students, including those in middle and high school.
“There’s a 15-year-old out there right now who has an idea on how to solve some of these issues that we need to hear,” he said. There’s also a single parent with four kids, a grandmother raising two kids, or a parent who moved down here and needs to know how to engage the school. It’s really about everybody.”
While EducateNKY will look at all of Boone, Kenton and Campbell Counties, the region’s river cities are a focus for the organization.
Hanner said there is a unique opportunity in NKY with the river cities. He said there is no greater concentration of independent school districts anywhere in the state than in NKY.
Working with the river city schools is part of phase one for EducateNKY. Hanner said that phase could last 10 years. He said this doesn’t mean they are ignoring the rest of Boone, Kenton and Campbell but starting where the needs are the greatest. The board has set a goal of raising $20 million for phase one.
“If you start at Ludlow and go all the way down to Dayton and then you pull in Southgate, these are smaller, independent school districts that cut across two counties, where singularly it’s difficult,” Hanner said. “There’s a Kentucky state funding model that makes it prohibitive for innovation, especially when you’re a small, independent school district—unless there’s a lot of wealth in that community.”
Hanner has met with all the river city superintendents and said they have ideas, but they’re handcuffed by a lack of resources and all the issues they deal with daily. He said it’s going to take more than the school districts. It will take communities; nonprofits and everyone working together to help lift and support the independent school districts along the river.
“The river cities are certainly a focus,” Finan said. “Where is the greatest need? Where are some of the biggest obstacles? And so naturally, you might focus there first, but then it starts to grow outward because the programming is right for everyone if there’s a program that starts to get amplified. It doesn’t just stay in the river cities or the urban core. There’s an opportunity for all districts to participate.”
Throughout the process so far, Hanner said he has been asked why not focus on the rural parts of the counties. He said there are over 7,000 students combined in the river city schools. The work they will be doing in the river cities will be prenatal until the kids graduate from high school.
“It’s not an indictment on the school district,” Hanner said. “It’s really about how we now understand your needs better, and it’s not just working with school districts. Catholic schools in the river cities face the same challenges as public schools. It’s really nonprofits and schools and cities. How can the cities of Covington, Newport, Dayton, Ludlow, and so on come together with a common understanding? And what are things that they can do to help make a change?”
Finan stressed that EducateNKY is not about programming.
“There are plenty of programs, plenty of great programs; I think it’s about amplifying the things that work, scaling, the programs that work that are being done in and around our community, but maybe they just haven’t scaled to other districts or whatever it might be,” Finan said.
If they’re not creating programs, what are they doing? Based on the landscape assessment’s findings, EducateNKY will serve as a catalyst in three areas within its upcoming strategic plan:
Help bring new, research-based ideas to life.
Assist existing organizations expand their impact.
Collaboratively create opportunities for public/private partnerships in business/education engagement, legislative initiatives and/or in school-based settings.
They will not take over the work nonprofits, schools and the education council do. Hanner said he wouldn’t have taken the job if EducateNKY’s goal was to create and run new programs.
He said they would expect things like metrics and a sustainability plan because there have been opportunities and ideas, but when leadership changes or funding goes away, they aren’t sustained.
The work EducateNKY does is not a mandate. Finan said the districts would have to work with them and have been as the organization has been built out.
Hanner said there is always fear when a new entity comes in. He said the organization runs lean. He is the only full-time employee; the Logistics and Communications Lead, Nancy Costello, is part-time and they have a consultant. Hanner said they aren’t going to hire 30 new people to run a bunch of different programs.
The big picture, or what will create a systemic change, will be pushed by the direction of the advisory council through their work groups.
“This is a comprehensive initiative, and it has to be looked at as long-term,” Finan said. “You can’t do this for two years and fall off a cliff. This is a culture change. This is a time for Northern Kentucky to really control its own destiny.”
Greg Fischer sits on the Managing Board of LINK nky, which oversees the business operations of LINK but has no say in editorial matters.
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