Community Partnerships Change Education Landscape of the Future” with Donna Deeds, President of Museum at Prairiefire

Donna Deeds Blog Image

With a rich background in educational and business leadership, Donna Deeds is the queen of partnerships.

Donna has served as assistant superintendent in the Durango School District in Durango Colorado, as an elementary school principal, and is the owner of Fast Schools, an education consulting organization.

After seeing the big gap between what happens in high schools and what real world of work is expecting, she had the idea of marrying corporations, businesses and the community with education. That’s how the CAPS program, which she lead, designed and executed, was founded.

The Center for Advanced Professional Studies (CAPS) is designed to provide high school students the skills needed to succeed in the competitive college environment and global work force. CAPS is an example of how private industry, such as Black & Veatch, Cisco, Cerner, Sprint, Bayer, Burns and McDonnell, Ford Motor Company, Garmin and the public education system can partner to produce personalized learning experiences that educate the workforce of tomorrow, especially in STEM related industries.

Donna shares:

  • The hesitations they experienced from the business side in regards of working with high school students and how they made it work
  • How they got the right teachers on board
  • The challenges of taking the program from an affluent neighborhood to the poorer districts and neighborhoods in the same city
  • How students can get involved in the program
  • The interaction between school curriculum and the CAPS program

We also go into the way Donna now uses her experience in her new role as the President of the Museum at Prairiefire. The museum’s mission is to provide access for all to understand and celebrate science and natural history in the Kansas region. The museum engages guests, students and educators with world-class exhibitions, important programming, and significant educational and STEM opportunities.

With regards to the museum, we talk about:

  • The importance of getting younger children involved in science
  • The museum’s concept for the field trips
  • Their current exhibition
  • KC urban advantage
  • Donna’s biggest goal and what that means for the future of the museum
  • Augmented reality and full virtual reality
  • What gives her hope for the future
  • and so much more.

Thanks for tuning in! If you enjoy this podcast, please share it with our friends, family, teachers and educators. We are all in this together. You, too, can make a difference in the lives of the children in your community.
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