UFT/ August 2, 2012 Six Win Bid to Pilot Community School Model
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 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.