Massachusetts – City Connects Blog

Connecting a Family Resource Center to the Salem community

Last year, when Pathways Family Resource Center opened its second space in Salem, Mass., some of the first visitors to arrive were City Connects Coordinators who wanted to see what the organization could offer Salem students.

“It was very exciting,” Christina Sakelakos says. She’s one of the City Connects Coordinators at Salem’s Collins Middle School. “The Family Resource Center offers parent support groups and classes. They connect parents to other community resources, and they provide on-site child care while parents attend meetings at the center.”

“We often partner with them when we are concerned about a student’s attendance or their behavior in school. Or if we’re noticing that a parent is struggling with getting a student to go to school.”

Pathways Family Resource Center offers support groups for fathers and grandparents as well as nutrition programs and support groups for Spanish-speaking families. The center also provides services to children who are being supervised by the Massachusetts Court System or who are at risk of being supervised.

The Weekly Connect 4/1/24

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Here are some of the things we’ve been reading about this week:

CDC says schools can expand social-emotional support for students.

Across the country, parents, educators, and legislators debate whether to ban cell phone use in school.

The Los Angeles Unified School District and the nonprofit Many Mansions provide affordable housing units for families.

To read more, click on the following links.

The Weekly Connect 3/11/24

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

Here are some of the things we’ve been reading about this week:

Schools that use early-warning systems to track severe absenteeism still miss students who are absent for a significant but less severe number of days.

As Covid relief funds expire, some rural schools face a funding cliff.

In their State of the State addresses, governors are prioritizing early childhood programs, curriculum, school choice, and mental health.

To read more, click on the following links.

The Weekly Connect 2/5/24

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

Here are some of the things we’ve been reading about this week:

An Ohio State University study finds that up to 70% of children struggle with the transition to kindergarten.

States are looking at how to invest in the “science of reading” to help school children.

South Carolina doubles the number of school counselors.

To read more, click on the following links.

The Weekly Connect 1/22/24

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

Here are some of the things we’ve been reading about this week:

Kindergarteners are struggling in school, even though they were babies when Covid first spiked.

The U.S. Department of Education has awarded more than $32 in school infrastructure grants.

Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey pushes to expand free preschool.

To read more, click on the following links.

“Tell me about this student” — Seeing the whole child through a whole class review

A key part of the City Connects model is the whole class review.

To conduct this review, our Coordinators meet with teachers and discuss every student, reviewing their strengths, needs, and interests.

The whole class review help schools do a better job of seeing the whole child in all four domains — academics, social emotional wellbeing, family, and health — that City Connects supports.

At Beverly High School, the whole class review helped Carla Ann Femino see that “The students in our English Learner program had really high needs and didn’t have enough supports to address that.”

Meet our team — on YouTube

To highlight the diverse backgrounds and talents of the people who work at City Connects, we have been releasing videos that showcase our staff members on our YouTube channel.

Here are a few of our exceptional staff members whom we’ve posted videos of recently.

It really does take a village to provide integrated student support in schools, and we’re glad to have these staff members join us in this mission.

Madeline Gillespie, Boston Catholic Schools Program Manager

Madeline Gillespie is our talented Boston Catholic Schools Program Manager. She works with City Connects Coordinators in Boston to help them provide student support and make sure each child in a school is known and seen.

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The Weekly Connect 12/4/23

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

Here are some of the things we’ve been reading about this week:

Transgender young people report worse mental health than the general U.S. population.

Nebraska is addressing “book deserts” by distributing books through its Growing Readers Initiative.

Principals share strategies for boosting students’ mental health.

To read more, click on the following links.

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