Learn more about the 2025 Parent/Guardian Speaker Series

Our 2025-2026 Parent/Guardian Series Greenwood Is: Belonging & Community will bring parents and guardians together as we learn, explore, and share about topics intended to build community and our understanding of each other as a way to support belonging.

We are thrilled to have partners from two organizations who will be sharing their expertise with staff, students, parents and guardians. 

Irshad Manji is set to speak to parents/guardians on September 25. She will share ways she helps adults and teens alike develop the skills needed to have productive conversations on potentially polarizing topics. Irshad will return in the spring and lead an online session for parents and guardians. Irshad prefers to call the time with her a “shared experience” rather than a speech or workshop. 

Greenwood is always working with ConnectEd this year. ConnectEd began with “empowering educators to foster critical thinking, empathy, and respectful discourse on the Israeli-Palestinian story, antisemitism, and Jewish history” and has grown to equip students with essential skills in media literacy and courageous conversations across divergent topics and perspectives. In August 2025, Yoni Buckman led a professional development session for teachers on the skills needed to have productive conversations when opinions differ. During this workshop, teachers developed tools to facilitate productive conversations between students with differing viewpoints. As we work to expose students to multiple perspectives on topics, it is critical that our staff and students develop the skills to have and facilitate conversations during which people listen and learn from each other. 

As part of our Parent/Guardian Series Greenwood Is: Belonging & Community, Yoni Buckman from ConnectEd will lead a session later this year on Teens and Social Media.

Through ConnectEd, Greenwood has joined a cohort of 30 schools that are committed to learning and sharing research and work in the area of courageous conversations. The opportunity to engage in dialogue with other schools and lead with our experiences and input will ensure our commitment to pluralism, which is something we live each day.