Springfield Public Schools – City Connects Blog

Educators from Dublin and Springfield talk about City Connects

Last week, we proudly welcomed the principals of the 10 City Connects schools in Dublin, Ireland, to meet with our staff at Boston College.

It was a wonderful chance to share ideas and strategies about how City Connects helps schools understand and address the needs and interests of their students.

The principals visited several local Catholic and public schools in Boston that implement City Connects, shared their own City Connects experiences, and talked about how to better engage families, teachers, and the community in providing students with systematic support.

One of the most inspiring sessions was a discussion on implementing City Connects in large cities that occurred between the Dublin principals and Daniel Warwick, Superintendent of the Springfield Public Schools in Massachusetts. Warwick was joined by Jessica Davila, the principal of Springfield’s Alice B. Beal School, and Stephanie Sanabria, Springfield’s City Connects Program Manager.

Springfield’s Superintendent talks about City Connects

Daniel J. Warwick grew up in Springfield, Mass. He was an educator in Springfield’s schools. And he had the sense that something was missing.

“We had counseling in every school, but what was missing were the wraparound services, the supports, the connections to clinical services and other services that families need,” Warwick recalls.

Some of our students were struggling personally and academically. Families who most needed help had a hard time accessing services on their own.

Then, in 2010, Warwick came to Boston to see City Connects in action.

“I had worked in special education as a teacher and as a supervisor, and I was a building principal for a long time,” Warwick says. “So when I saw City Connects in an urban district that was like Springfield, it made perfect sense to me that this was the missing link for us.”

City Connects offered a way to learn about every student’s strengths and needs and then connect students to services.

“Providing proactive supports makes a difference. Our suspensions and arrests are down 70 to 90 percent. And having City Connects’ specifically tailored, individual plan has really made a huge difference for our kids, because if we don’t take care of their specific needs, their academics are going to be problematic.”

Safety Day turns into something even more special

Originally, the goal of Safety Day was to let students at Brunton Elementary School in Springfield, Mass., meet community helpers. But the actual day turned into a larger, even more meaningful community-building event that drew students closer to each other and to important adults in their community.

“The idea was for children to see community helpers in a positive light,” Cristina Giannakopoulos, Brunton’s City Connects Coordinator, explains.

Giannakopoulos and her colleagues organized Safety Day, inviting representatives from the Springfield Police Department and the Hampden County Sheriff’s Department, as well as paramedics and members of the Springfield Fire Department.

The result was a beautiful spring day that turned into a public safety party. The guests – including police officers, police unit dispatchers, and emergency medical technicians – gathered just outside the school building, bringing along a sheriff’s department marine unit boat, a therapy dog, and sheriff’s department horses.

Sky’s the limit: Connecting kids to career options

Laurie Roule used to be a history teacher at STEM Middle Academy in Springfield, Mass. Then she decided to switch careers. And now she’s helping sixth, seventh, and eighth graders think about their careers as the academy’s City Connects coordinator.

“I taught eighth grade forever,” Roule says. “And eighth grade is when students choose what high school they want to go to. Kids usually just choose the most popular schools. So I thought it would be cool if they could be exposed to different careers, which might change their minds about where to go to high school.”

So Roule set up what has become an annual career fair, and she invites local professionals.

“I wanted the kids to know that there’s more out there than they’re aware of. And I want them to be curious and ask questions.”

“The people we invite to the fair have fun and love talking to the kids. So we have a lot of people who come back every year.”

That has included carpenters, electricians, firefighters who bring their truck, police officers, an archeologist, and a large animal veterinarian. Representatives from the U.S. Army and the U.S. Navy have come as well as a nurse practitioner, paramedics, a physical therapist, crime scene investigators (CSI), a camera crew from Channel 40, a meteorologist from Channel 22, the director of a local music school, car detailers, and automotive technicians from Sarat Ford, a nearby dealership.

“When I went to high school, I was very interested in chemistry, but that wasn’t encouraged because I was a girl,” Roule says. “So I like to bring women in from many careers,” including a member of the CSI team. “I want the girls to know that they can go into any field they want to.”

Expanding Catie’s Closet in Springfield

City Connects Coordinators always ask the same important questions: What do students need? How can Coordinators help? How can community partners help?

Asking these questions at the Indian Orchard Elementary School in Springfield, Mass., led to a productive partnership.

“We’ve collected clothing donations on our own, and we still do,” Shandria McCoy says. McCoy and Alaina Lyman are Indian Orchard’s City Connects Coordinators. “But last year our principal asked me about bringing Catie’s Closet to our school.”

It’s a great match. Catie’s Closet is a nonprofit organization that provides students with donated clothes by setting up spaces in schools where students can go to get these clothes. And students at Indian Orchard sometimes need clothes, especially since they wear school uniforms – khaki or navy blue pants and blue or white shirts. Springfield Public Schools started requiring school uniforms in 2008 to help students stay focused on schoolwork.

But for some families, affording clothes can be a challenge.

Welcoming immigrant students to City Connects schools

As immigration to the United States continues, schools are enrolling immigrant students and working to meet their needs.

Providing this support to students and their families is a core strength of the City Connects model. This is especially true at City Connects schools which are located in Boston, Springfield, Minneapolis, and other areas with immigrant communities. In these communities, City Connects Coordinators have been assessing students’ strengths and needs and connecting them to services, supports, and enrichment programs.

One important result is better outcomes for students. As City Connects’ 2022 Progress Report explains:

“Immigrant students who experienced City Connects significantly outperformed immigrant students who never experienced the intervention on both reading and math achievement test scores. City Connects also narrowed achievement gaps between immigrant students and their English-proficient peers.”

This finding comes from research conducted by Eric Dearing, a Boston College professor at the Lynch School of Education and Human Development.

In a recent conversation Dearing noted, “We certainly have immigrants who are pulled to the United States who have high levels of education. But we also have many immigrants who come who are being pushed to the United States from countries that are experiencing war, trauma, and poverty.”

City Connects: building relationships between schools and families

To improve outcomes for kids, the City Connects model looks at four domains: academics, social/emotional behavior, physical health, and family.

Our focus on family is essential because parents and caregivers are key partners in students’ development and success. Families help City Connects Coordinators understand what students’ strengths and needs are.

As our 2022 Progress Report explains, “City Connects believes that schools are the epicenter of support for children and families.” Putting services and supports in schools makes them easier to access. And we know that supporting adults who may need help getting their children winter clothes or health care services also helps students. In short, when a family is doing well, children are more likely to do well.

One example of a coordinator’s work with a student and his family is Julian, a student featured in our progress report. A fourth grader in a City Connects school, Julian had two strengths: his academics and his mother’s engagement with his school.

However, “At the same time, Julian experienced significant difficulty with behavioral regulation in the classroom. He frequently disrupted lessons and activities, which not only impacted Julian’s ability to learn, but presented a challenge for his teacher and his peers.”

City Connects featured in a Boston Globe op-ed

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.”

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