By: Mireya Garcia, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education
All students deserve to grow up in communities that foster their success through strong family and community support systems to prepare them for academic success in college, career and beyond. On Monday, the U.S. Department of Education awarded $6.9 million to 7 grantees across 6 states through the Promise Neighborhoods program which provides funding to support students from cradle to career. This grant competition distributes funds to non-profit organizations, institutions of higher education, and Indian/Native American Tribes to provide cradle to career solutions to the needs of children and families impacted by poverty.
Promise Neighborhoods also provide a unique opportunity for communities to create a comprehensive approach to help prevent and address violence in their neighborhoods. Funds can support a broad approach that allows grantees to coordinate mental health professionals, the criminal justice system, economic or workforce development organizations, and community leaders to intervene in areas with high rates of violence. This type of neighborhood-driven planning has been crucial in gun violence efforts, in partnership across federal agencies with the White House of Gun Violence Prevention. Current grantees have engaged with Parks Departments, Departments of Justice, and local community organizations to focus on creating safe public spaces such as parks and more walkable communities, improving both safety and wellness in their neighborhoods, and creating a safe passage for students to get to school. Grantees have also focused on increasing attendance and graduation rates as well as community mentoring to mitigate violence among teens.
This year’s competition included three competitive priories: Strengthening Cross-Agency Coordination and Community Engagement to Advance Systemic Change, Applications from New Potential Grantees, and Promoting Equity in Student Access to Educational Resources and Opportunities. The notice also included one invitational priority for grantees to address chronic absenteeism. Six grantees supported the program’s invitational priority to address chronic absenteeism. Select abstracts are profiled below:
Walker County Promise Neighborhoods – Walker County, Alabama
In partnership with Jasper City Schools, the United Way of Central Alabama will create a cradle to career pipeline for students that is unique to the rural context of the City of Jasper and Walker County, Alabama. Pipeline services that will be added during the grant include: (1) expanded learning opportunities through out-of-schooltime programs, (2) partnerships between schools and community resources, and (3) support for school and workforce transitions.
Jubilee Park Promise Neighborhoods Initiative (Jubilee PNI) – Dallas, Texas
Jubilee Park & Community Center will work with a high-need LEA (Dallas Independent School District), two IHEs (Southern Methodist University and Dallas College), and local community organizations to achieve equity in the community and expand student access to higher education. Jubilee PNI activities will include Head Start, a food pantry, primary and behavioral healthcare, child developmental assessments, Teen Club, Youth Sports, Out of School Time programs, Specialized Support Services, Community Policing, wellness programming, workforce development, senior housing and activities, home repair and emergency rental assistance (Seeds of Hope), and new Youth Transitions programming for teens and young adults through age 24.
East Oakland Promise Neighborhood (EOPN) – Oakland, California
The East Oakland Promise Neighborhood will bring together non-profit Oakland Promise, Oakland Unified School District, Peralta Community College District, and more than a dozen local community-based organizations to establish a person-centered, family-friendly, and culturally-inclusive cradle-to-career pipeline of services to support young people to succeed in their education and enable families to thrive. The EOPN’s overall objectives are (1) Increase safety and stability within the community, decreasing displacement/mobility of Black, Brown, and other marginalized communities; (2) Increase students’ holistic academic development/proficiency, integrating social-emotional learning and 21st-century skill-development across TK-12 into post-secondary education, and (3) Increase families’ access to wrap-around services to support the holistic well-being of children as well as family well-being and success.
The transformative vision of the Promise Neighborhoods initiative is that all children and youth growing up in Promise Neighborhoods have access to high quality supports, ensuring school readiness, high school graduation, and access to a community-based continuum of high-quality services. Today’s funding announcement creates an onramp for more students to be able to access such services.
To learn more about the Promise Neighborhoods program, please visit Promise Neighborhoods (PN) – Office of Elementary and Secondary Education.
