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Here are some of the things we’ve been reading about this week:
The trauma of preschool suspensions and expulsions is long-lasting.
Supreme Court asks President Biden about the legal status of charter schools.
America’s public schools are losing students.
To read more, click on the following links.
Continue reading “The Weekly Connect 1/17/23”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:
Higher youth suicide rates linked to mental health staff shortages.
School budgets should not rely solely on local property taxes; they also need flexible state aid.
Programs for gifted students need more support.
To read more, click on the following links.
Continue reading “The Weekly Connect 12.5.22”
City Connects is in the news again, featured in a Boston Globe op-ed by Kerry Donahue about how schools can help students recover from the educational and social-emotional losses caused by the pandemic.
“Urgently addressing the needs of students is critical for ensuring the generation of children impacted by the pandemic do not suffer long-term harm,” Donahue writes. She’s the chief strategy officer at the Boston Schools Fund, “a non-profit organization that advances educational equity through opportunity and access to high-quality schools.”
“With only two remaining school years to spend hundreds of millions of available federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds, the city should harness these resources in four critical areas,” Donahue adds.
These areas are evidence-based literacy instruction, high-dosage tutoring, coherent wraparound services, and increased operations capacity.
As Donahue notes, students’ “increased mental health and social-emotional needs” are “straining schools and districts that were never designed to manage this volume or concentration of need. Expecting schools that are already trying to address major academic gaps, while managing continued COVID disruptions for students and staff, to also build an effective wraparound service delivery operation defies logic.”
One solution:
Continue reading “City Connects featured in a Boston Globe op-ed”
While the blog is on summer vacation, we’re sharing past posts about the many ways City Connects helps students thrive.
This week’s roundup looks at staff members who are or have been part of City Connects, which is based at the Mary E. Walsh Center for Thriving Children in Boston College’s Lynch School of Education and Human Development.
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Practice and research: a conversation with Maria Theodorakakis
City Connects Blog, November 11, 2021
Even as an undergraduate at Boston College, Maria Theodorakakis was looking for a way to combine her academic interests with hands-on work.
“I was looking for a major that really kind of combined my interest in psychology and sociology with my interest in helping kids and working in schools,” Theodorakakis recalls.
A conversation with the late John Cawthorne, a former Associate Dean in BC’s Lynch School of Education and Human Development, led her to transfer from the College of Arts and Sciences to the Lynch School – and that’s where she found City Connects.
Back in those days, in 2007, when City Connects was only in five Boston schools, Theodorakakis applied for and received a summer research fellowship, joining the City Connects team.
Continue reading “From the archives: Checking in with City Connects staff”
While the blog is on summer vacation, we’re sharing past posts about the many ways City Connects helps students thrive.
This week’s roundup looks at how City Connects Coordinators bring fun activities into their schools.
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Community Partners: Girls on the Run Twin Cities
City Connects Blog, January 25 2018
Sometimes a community partner provides fun, exercise, inspiration, confidence, and a chance to cheer for grown-ups. That’s the story of Girls on the Run Twin Cities, a nonprofit organization that teaches girls how to fulfill their potential, serve their communities, and run a 5K race.
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Summer: services, opportunities, and fun
City Connects Blog, May 30, 2019
As the school year draws to a close, City Connects Coordinators across the country are helping students prepare for summer, connecting them to services and opportunities that will help them succeed when school isn’t in session.
For Asha Quattrocchi, a City Connects Coordinator at the Cold Spring School in Indianapolis, Ind., this means sharing information and making connections.
Continue reading “From the archives: the power of fun”
While the blog is on summer vacation, we’re sharing past posts about the many ways City Connects helps students thrive.
This week’s roundup looks at how City Connects Coordinators build relationships with students, parents, and schools to deliver services and connect kids to enrichment opportunities.
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Relationships matter in City Connects schools
City Connects Blog, September 12, 2019
It’s a new school year, so City Connects Coordinators are reinforcing existing relationships and building new ones.
At Catholic Central Elementary School, in Springfield, Ohio, where City Connects’ Coordinator Josh Richardt works, he tells students in pre-k through fifth grade, “I am so glad you’re in school today.”
There is also a sign hanging in the hallway that says, “You belong here.”
These messages weave students, especially new ones, firmly into the school’s fabric. And they build on a key finding from the developmental sciences: Relationships matter.
Continue reading “From the archives: City Connects Coordinators build relationships and deliver resources”
While the blog is on summer vacation, we’re sharing past posts and social media coverage about the many ways City Connects helps students thrive.
This week’s roundup looks at how City Connects works with community partners around the country to bring the right services to the right students at the right time.
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City Connects and Catie’s Closet: working with a community partner that’s just down the hall
City Connects Blog, January 24, 2019
Last school year, Lincoln Elementary School in Springfield, Mass., had a custodian’s closet that was nothing special.
This year that space has been transformed – painted, carpeted and decorated – and turned into Catie’s Closet, a cheerful place where students can get donated clothes and toiletries.
Continue reading “From the archives: our community partners”
City Connects Coordinators have been working harder than ever to meet the needs of students, families, and communities.
Here’s a roundup of news stories that share some of the work coordinators are doing.
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In Salem, Mass., a fire that damaged five buildings prompted a community-wide response that includes city officials, local charities, and City Connects Coordinators.
“Our thoughts are with our Salem school families who were impacted by yesterday’s fire on Hancock Street,” Salem’s School Superintendent Stephen Zrike said in a news release.
“Salem Public Schools’ City Connects Coordinators, Family Engagement Facilitators, and school leaders are working with identified staff and families who may have been impacted. If you have questions or have been impacted by the fire, please contact your school to be connected with those who can assist.”
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In Indianapolis, Ind., Mayor Joe Hogsett is addressing the city’s mental health challenges. In March, he pledged to “implement a clinician-led mobile crisis team to respond to calls for help involving mental health situations in Indiana’s capital city,” the Indianapolis Star reports, adding that another part of the city’s efforts to address mental health is City Connects, which “lets the city work with school children and their families on mental health-related issues.”
And as Indianapolis and other City Connects sites show, the supportive work that coordinators do inside schools integrates with and enhances community wide efforts.
Continue reading “City Connects in the news”
City Connects Blog 