Education

Ohio incorporates City Connects into its state budget

Alyssa Haywoode2 Comments


Ohio has made crucial budget progress that includes City Connects. 

Last May, when we blogged about Ohio, Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted had visited Chaminade Julienne High School in Dayton to see City Connects in action. 

“We believe that this is a replicable model that can be used in public schools and other schools across the state,” Husted told WHIO Television. “And we want the new money that’s being put into the budget to serve these students to go to programs like this.” 

At the time, Ohio’s Legislature was considering investing $550 million to provide “wraparound services” in the state’s schools, and City Connects provided a local example of how investment in evidence-based approaches positively impacts Ohio students. Continue reading →

The Weekly Connect 10/28/19

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Here’s the new edition of The Weekly Connect. Check it out and sign up to have it delivered to your inbox!

These are some of the things we’ve been reading about:

Culturally supportive programs for African-American boys boost their graduation rates.

Afterschool nutrition program grows but needs more funding to reach more students.

Best practices for district-wide implementation of social/emotional learning.

To read more, click on the following links.

Continue reading →

City Connects launches a new data system

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We’ve done a major update of our technology platform. We’ve given it a new name, MyConnects. And we’ve made it a more powerful tool that’s easier to use – for implanting and sustaining City Connects, and for conducting research. Plus we have more updates and new features coming.

In the old days our City Connects data system relied on paper records. Over time our data moved to a server, then a website, and eventually to a software platform that was launched in 2011. 

“People would have to be heavily trained to know which information was available where,” Brian Ward, City Connects’ Manager for Technology Support and Administration, says. 

 Now, MyConnects lets us do this work more efficiently and effectively. 

To develop MyConnects, we surveyed our City Connects Coordinators; they are our front-line data collectors, gathering student information during whole class reviews and individual student reviews.  Continue reading →

The Weekly Connect 10/21/19

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Here’s the new edition of The Weekly Connect. Check it out and sign up to have it delivered to your inbox!

These are some of the things we’ve been reading about:

Kindergarten readiness can predict future school performance.

California delays school start times so students can get more sleep.

How to improve Individualized Education Program meetings.

To read more, click on the following links.

Continue reading →

How graduate assistants add to our work

Alyssa HaywoodeLeave a comment
Despina Petsagourakis and Agnes Chung
Jordan Lawson
Elizabeth McKernan

Every year, City Connects has a dozen or so Boston College graduate assistants who contribute to our work and share our knowledge. 

“One of the best things about having graduate assistants is that they really become true collaborators and members of our team,” Claire Foley, City Connects’ Associate Director, says.

“They are involved in all the different phases of our work: research, implementation, and policy. That includes collecting and analyzing data, literature reviews, organizing a community event, or sharing our research at conferences.” 

City Connects selects students from different Boston College programs including Counseling Psychology, Applied and Developmental Psychology, and MESA, the Measurement, Evaluation, Statistics, and Assessment program. 

In addition to learning about the City Connects model, graduate assistants contribute their own intellectual curiosity about how the model works and what makes it effective for students. 

One great example is Despina Petsagourakis, a doctoral student in Counseling Psychology at Boston College’s Lynch School of Education and Human Development. Continue reading →

The Weekly Connect 10/14/19

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Here’s the new edition of The Weekly Connect. Check it out and sign up to have it delivered to your inbox!

These are some of the things we’ve been reading about:

Pediatricians can help students who struggle in school.

School districts in Colorado have a four-day school week.

Adding more qualified teachers to after school programs.

To read more, click on the following links.

Continue reading →

Growing national action on expanding integrated student support

Alyssa Haywoode1 Comment


We know that getting students the right supports and opportunities at the right time helps them to do better in school. 

That’s the core of City Connects’ model of providing integrated student support (ISS). 

The challenge is scaling this approach so it can reach more children, work that’s being done by the Center for Optimized Student Support at Boston College’s Lynch School of Education and Human Development. The center is home to City Connects.

In April, the Center for Optimized Student Support worked with the Center for Promise, part of the Boston University Wheelock College of Education, to release a policy brief — “Building Systems of Integrated Student Support A Policy Brief for Local and State Leaders” – that offers guidance to policymakers.

The brief points to “a wide range of activities to address the complex and changing needs of children, youth, and families,” including the work that hundreds of schools do to provide “wraparound” services, have a “collective impact,” and fund community schools and “Promise Neighborhoods.”  Continue reading →

The Weekly Connect 10/7/19

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Here’s the new edition of The Weekly Connect. Check it out and sign up to have it delivered to your inbox!

These are some of the things we’ve been reading about:

Three or more hours of social media use can hurt adolescents’ mental health.

A California law calls for more screenings to identify developmental delays in young children.

In Detroit, children wear “talk pedometers” that count the words they hear and speak.

To read more, click on the following links.

Continue reading →