Learn It Welcomes COO, Ebbie!

We'd like to welcome COO, Ebbie Parsons, III to the Learn It team!  Here is a message from our President & CEO, Michael Maloney, announcing Ebbie's hire.  

"Team,

I’m very excited to announce the appointment of Dr. Ebbie Parsons, III as COO of Learn It Systems.  Ebbie Parsons, III brings to Learn It Systems more than 10 years of operations leadership experience across both the public and private sector.  In his new role as Chief Operating Officer, Ebbie will be overseeing program operations, Education Quality, and Business Development. 

Prior to joining Learn It Systems, Ebbie served as Chief Operating Officer of Mosaica Education, one of the world’s premiere education management companies. While at Mosaica, Ebbie had management oversight of more than 2,000 employees worldwide and was directly responsible for operating over 90 schools across the United States and Asia.  Before joining Mosaica, Ebbie spent most of his career at Fortune 500 companies but chose to leave a promising corporate career to help reform K-12 education from the top down. Ebbie’s big break into educational leadership came as part of the prestigious Broad Residency Program in Urban Education, sponsored by the Eli & Edythe Broad Foundation.  While a Broad Resident, Ebbie served as Acting Chief Operating Officer of Hartford Public Schools, the largest school district in the state of Connecticut, directing a staff of over 400 employees across 7 different departments.

Since his time as a Broad Resident, Ebbie has made it his personal mission to improve the institution of education and he has proudly impacted the lives of more than 75,000 children around the world while delivering unprecedented business results to the organizations in which he has served. A true testament to his passion for education, Ebbie recently completed his Ed.D. in Educational and Organizational Leadership at the University of Pennsylvania. In addition to his Doctorate, Ebbie earned an MBA from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota and a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the Florida A&M – Florida State University College of Engineering.  Ebbie also studied at Harvard University, where he earned an Executive Certificate in Performance Management.

Ebbie currently resides in Atlanta, GA with his wife Ayana. In his spare time, he enjoys spending time with family and friends, attending sporting events, and traveling internationally.

Please join me in welcoming Ebbie to the organization."

Michael Maloney

President & CEO

Learn It Systems

Team Retreat 2012

The Online Team, Kory and Marc,
present their SWOT Analysis

On Tuesday, November 8th, the departments under Legal and Government Affairs (aka Team Wolf) spent the day at their yearly Team Retreat.  It was held at the Loyola Center in Timonium, and the team was ready to go at 8:30 a.m. to work on strategic plans for the upcoming year.

Each team presented status summaries of their plans developed last December and their department's current SWOT analysis.  After breaking for lunch, each department moved into separate break-out rooms to develop a new strategic plan for 2012, which was then presented to the entire group.

After a full day of analyzing and planning, Team Wolf continued its retreat with a team building event located at Red Zone.  Breaking into two teams, instant strategizing and competitive natures came out of everyone during a game of laser tag.  Alphonza's (Regional Education Quality Manager) team took the victory, and everyone huddled at the score board to look at the stats.  Completely pumped from the fun "Capture The Flag" version of tag, a rematch (with the addition of President & CEO, Michael) immediately took place, resulting in a tie with Kory's (Online Program Manager) team's win.

Calling it even, Team Wolf gathered in a room to enjoy some dinner before departing home for the evening.  Raquel (VP of Legal & Government Affairs) lead a successful and fun team retreat, and we all thank her for getting us out of the office to strategize and bond with our fellow colleagues.

Departments that participated:

• Education
• Legal
• Marketing
• Non-Public
• Online

Newsletters

Fall Newsletter, Issue 1, DC Non-Pub

Summer Program Newsletter, Week 4, St. Thomas, USVI

The Marketing team would like to share some information about the customized newsletter program now available to our field teams.  We have found newsletters to be a successful marketing tool within a few of our regions and programs.  They are a great way to share information with our students' families, instructors, and administrators. 

WHY SEND OUT NEWSLETTERS? 

Newsletters give you an opportunity to:

• Promote Parent Involvement Events
• Submit personalized letters/notes from Area Managers
• Introduce Learn It teachers
• Provide educational tips for parents
• Share calendars and important dates
• Summarize weekly, student activities and projects
• Display program photos

CAN I CUSTOMIZE MY NEWSLETTER?
We have templates that are easy to use and to drop in information. This is what we can customize:

Frequency: 

• We recommend quarterly newsletters, but you can send them monthly, twice a school year, or as often as you wish
• Delivery methods:
  Printed stacks for handing out/mailing on your own, mailers done through the Corporate office (please note this would add cost), electronic files to e-mail
• Content:
  We recommend inserting Area Manager welcome letters, calendars/important dates, event information, educational tips, Learn It teachers biographies, and program pictures.  Of course this is unlimited, and any information you would like to provide can be used. 

Tip:  It is easiest to give us too much information than too little!

HOW DO I GET STARTED? 

Our advice in getting started:

• Develop a plan for when you would like to send home newsletters to your students
• Type up all of the information in a Word document or e-mail (scanned documents do not work well)
• Gather your own photos or let us know what time of imaging you'd like to use
• Gather any testimonials you have received
• Organize upcoming events and give us the details.  We can also include pictures of marketing materials on newsletters. 
• Contact us EARLY.  Newsletters are time sensitive and need to be distributed quickly.  Keep in mind that we are working on newsletters and other marketing efforts at the same time. 
• Give us all of your ideas!

The photos above are a few examples to give you an idea of what has been used out in the field.  These examples are from our most recent newsletters that have been used for Learn It's U.S. Virgin Island Summer Schoolhouse program on St. Thomas and St. Croix and our Non-Public Services program in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore. 

TO SUM IT ALL UP...
We in the Marketing Department know no two newsletters are the same and can work with you to develop a plan that works for your region or program. 

Take a look at the newsletters we have already created, start compiling the information you want to share, and contact the Marketing Department to discuss the next steps.

Weekly Tech Tips Debut

The LIS IT department sends out useful and user friendly tech tips to its employees on a weekly basis.  We, in the Marketing department, like the tech tips so much that we decided to share these on our blog for everyone to see.  We'd like to thank IT Manager, Chad Kornick, for sending us these.  They don't go unnoticed, and we appreciate all of this fantastic information!


Each week we will be posting the new tech tip we receive.  Check back frequently for these handy tips and to learn something new!

Tech Tip  #39

Want a quick way to see your windows calendar?

It is real simple.  LEFT click the time on your desktop.  This will bring up Windows Calendar and allow you to scroll through the months.

For those Outlook users, a quick way to get to your Outlook calendar is to hit  CTRL + 2 .   

CTRL + N  will create a new calendar entry as well.    

This is a great shortcut to create a new entry for contacts, notes, new mail messages, new tasks, and etc. This will save you a lot of time instead of fumbling around with your mouse.