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City Connects, a student support program founded by Lynch School Kearns Professor of Urban Education Mary Walsh, has received approximately $2.6 million in funding from six foundations to advance its work with 15,100 students in schools in Massachusetts and Ohio.
The funding will not only support the program, which works with teachers and school staff to connect students in need with tailored prevention, intervention, and enrichment services, but also be used to continue to study the effectiveness of City Connects’ approach to “optimized student support.”
Developed in 2001, City Connects addresses the out-of-school factors that can impede academic achievement, especially those factors exacerbated by poverty. Students in City Connects schools experience significant improvement in academic achievement and thriving.
“The statistical evidence of City Connects’ positive benefit reducing the high-school drop-out rate provides an example of a benefit that has substantial social and economic return to students and to society,” Walsh said.
The recently awarded grants include:
•A three-year, $1.4-million grant from the Barr Foundation, a leading funder of City Connects over the years, to support the program in 18 Boston Public Schools.
•A two-year, $150,000 grant from the GHR Foundation for a cost-benefit/social return on investment analysis of the program’s system of student support.
•A 3-year, $530,000 grant from the Better Way Foundation to extend an early childhood system of student support to all City Connects schools and evaluate immediate and long-term impact on learning and development.
•$250,000 from the New Balance Foundation, a founding supporter of the program, for implementation and research in Allston-Brighton schools with a special emphasis on addressing student health.
•$240,000 from the Mathile Family Foundation to adapt the City Connects intervention to older students at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio, as well as expansion and evaluation of the program in Dayton and Springfield, Ohio, schools.
•Funding from the Charles Hayden Foundation to support City Connects’ expansion to two Boston schools.
“The New Balance funding continues their support of our work in Allston-Brighton schools with a special emphasis on student health and wellness,” said Walsh. “The awards from the Better Way and Mathile Family foundations will allow us to offer a cradle to college continuum for the City Connects system of student support, starting with our youngest learners and then supporting them through high school graduation and on to college.”