As the region prepares to send its kids back to school for the 2025-26 school year (where did the summer go?!), we are gearing up for our next Community Conversation, which is all about education solutions for kids from birth to grade 12.
If you go:
What: LINK nky Community Conversation event on housing
When: Thursday, Oct. 9 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Where: Erlanger branch of the Kenton County Public Library
If you’re not familiar with our Community Conversations events, we hold them in conjunction with our bi-monthly super issues in print, which go to every single household in Northern Kentucky via direct mail. The topics for the super issue and the corresponding Community Conversation are the same, but the event is intended to be almost a live, in-person version of a news story that allows audience members to ask questions and interact with the panelists in real time.
We also have representatives from organizations across the region who provide help and resources when it comes to education – you can ask questions and take information with you that night.
For the Oct. 9 event, we invited people who have interesting, creative solutions for Northern Kentucky’s education challenges. You can arrive as early as 5 p.m. to the Erlanger branch of the Kenton County Public Library to peruse these resources, and the program starts promptly at 6 p.m.
Media personality and former WCPO anchor Evan Millward moderates our conversations, making sure to stay focused on positive solutions and ideas that could benefit the wider community.
For the Education event, you’ll meet Mary Kay Connolly, the director of Read Ready Covington, an early literacy collaborative that is expanding to other cities in Northern Kentucky.
You’ll also hear from Newport kindergarten teacher Hannah Mayle, has been working as a teacher in elementary schools for 12 years. While she has also worked as an intervention teacher and a 4th grade teacher, she says there is a special soft spot in her heart for her kindergartners.
We also have Jenny Watson scheduled to join us. Watson is the president of early learning and family power at EducateNKY. She has more than two decades of experience in instructional leadership and school administration, with much of that time spent in Boone County.
Last but not least, we will be joined by April Draine, an education advocate, parent and host of the ParentCamp Podcast.
