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UFT - United Federation of Teachers
08/02/2012 | News release
Six win bids to pilot community schools model
distributed by noodls on 07/30/2012 18:35
The UFT has partnered with the city's leading business group and the City Council in awarding $600,000 in planning grants to six schools to try out new models that provide school-based health and social services to students and their families.
UFT President Michael Mulgrew announced the grants at a packed press conference on June 27. He was joined by Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott, principals union chief Ernest Logan and Kathryn Wylde, the president of the business group Partnership for New York City, as well as staff from the six schools and leading community service providers.
The idea behind the grants, Mulgrew explained, is to help make schools into community "hubs" where children and their families have access to health and dental clinics, youth development activities, tutoring, counseling and social services.
"Our kids often have enormous barriers to learning that have little to do with their academic ability or their school's instruction - chronic illness, family problems and other issues that schools by themselves are not equipped to deal with," Mulgrew said. "Our goal is to work with schools and organizations to integrate providers of these services into the daily life of our students and our schools."
The schools awarded grants were PS 30 and Community Health Academy of the Heights, both in Manhattan; PS 188 and Sunset Park HS in Brooklyn; Curtis HS in Staten Island; and PS 18 in the Bronx.
The schools were chosen after submitting proposals and engaging in extended interviews with the UFT, which announced the pilot at its annual Spring Education Conference on May 12. The union and City Council are each providing $150,000 of the planning grant, with another $300,000 coming from the Partnership.
The program is based on a successful community schools model in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Quinn described the Cincinnati model as a way of putting schools at the "heart of a community." It caught their eye, she and several speakers said, because it has resulted in much stronger student achievement in that city and broad support for the schools from local businesses, nonprofits and other city agencies.
