Why SEANet is Important

by Mike Mangan and Teri Dary, Co-Chairs

The State Education Agency K-12 Service-Learning Network (SEANet) is a national member-directed network of professionals committed to advancing school-based service-learning initiatives in K-12 schools and school districts nationally. Learn and Serve America provides critical funding to support service-learning efforts in each SEA through formula grants.

SEANet is led by an executive board consisting of one regional representative from each of our five regional clusters plus two members at large. The board functions as a leadership team, providing direction and oversight for SEANet’s work.

As a unified national voice that provides active leadership to advance academically rigorous service-learning experiences in the school setting, SEANet is uniquely positioned to guide high quality practice across the field. Our role as an organization is to leverage the collective expertise of our members across the country in advancing service-learning for all K-12 students. SEANet members are able to collaborate not only with their service-learning colleagues in other states, but also with other education specialists within their own state education agencies. These collaborative opportunities place our members in a unique position to ensure that the resources developed will resonate with educators at all levels, reflect current education initiatives at the state and national level, and be meaningfully integrated within the academic curriculum. Through this collective work, SEANet engages national leaders in developing infrastructure that supports and nurtures high quality, sustainable service-learning practice.

Over the past year, SEANet has restructured our organization based on a leadership team model, allowing us to effectively leverage the collective expertise of our members to advance our work. This organizational shift has deepened SEANet’s ability to actively engage our membership in becoming advocates, developers, and transformers of service-learning within the K-12 academic setting.

A critical element to supporting this organization shift has involved moving SEANet to its new host agency at Innovations in Civic Participation (ICP). This reciprocal partnership offers the opportunity to strengthen SEANet’s role as a national voice in the field, working toward the common vision of deepening academically rigorous service-learning in the school setting.

Through this set of work, SEANet members have increased their capacity to design high quality programs at the state level, advocate for effective national, state and local policies that will advance service-learning throughout the educational process, and collaborate on mutually beneficial projects, such as multi-state research and evaluation efforts.

The unique perspective and expertise of our members allows us to inform and influence the broader education field in providing students with engaging, meaningful instruction which is immersed in an effective school climate that embraces youth as partners in the learning process.