Boston College’s Mary E. Walsh Center for Thriving Children, home to City Connects, has released two new briefs on the impact City Connects is having on students and in schools.
The first brief – The Impact of City Connects on Select Student Sub-Groups – looks at a series of studies that “have explored the impacts of City Connects on important student sub-groups who are especially vulnerable to lower academic and life outcomes.”
These groups include first-generation, immigrant, and English language learner students as well as African-American and Latino boys and students who receive special education services.
The studies point to a number of benefits, among them improved student achievement for first-generation immigrant children and reduced dropout rates for African-American and Latino boys.
These findings are crucial to ensuring that City Connects achieves its goal of addressing the needs of all students.
The second brief – The Impact of City Connects on Teachers and Schools – explains that teachers in City Connects schools say they have an expanded understanding of their students’ lives, which enables them to modify their curriculum to improve student learning. Teachers also say that their relationships with students and families are stronger.
Preliminary research suggests that having an integrated student support program like City Connects makes it more likely that teachers stay in their jobs.
Schools also benefit. City Connects helps boost school climate, narrow academic achievement gaps, and sustain the benefits of early education.
To learn more, check out the briefs – and review our Progress Reports.
These briefs and reports are all part of the Center for Thriving Children’s work of “advancing science, implementation, and innovation to promote healthy child and youth development, learning, and thriving.”
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