#StudentSuccess – Page 2 – City Connects Blog

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.”

The Weekly Connect 2/21/23

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:

Dramatic increases in mental health challenges for teenage girls.

Proposed New York State law would limit length of school suspensions.

Most of the United States is dealing with a teacher shortage.

To read more, click on the following links.

A creative solution for providing mental health care in Salem

Currently, there is a massive mental health crisis among students. The need is so pressing that President Biden called for increasing mental health services in schools during his recent State of the Union address.

Students who are referred for counseling often end up having their names put on long waiting lists, which was the case in Salem, Mass.

“A lot of the community partners that we would typically go to have waitlists that are weeks or sometimes months long,” Mia Riccio, Salem’s City Connects Program Manager, says. “The access just isn’t there. It’s especially hard for families who are under- or uninsured.”

To meet this need, Salem’s City Connects program is working with community partners to offer help more quickly by providing tele-mental health services.

Since 2016, Salem has deliberately taken a citywide approach toward meeting children’s needs, and last year, the city formed a Mental Health Task Force. At the time, as the local news source Patch media explains, school Superintendent Steve Zrike sent a letter to the school community, promising to leverage resources to “ensure that our community receives access to the highest quality services in a timely manner.”

“Zrike said the task force will look to find ways to provide students services both in and out of school,” the Patch adds.

The Weekly Connect 2.13.23

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:

Students who meet with counselors are more likely to apply for financial aid.

President Biden renews his call for youth mental health funding.

A California nonprofit organization forms a supportive peer group for African-American students.

To read more, click on the following links.

The Weekly Connect 2/6/23

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:

Experiential learning can help shrink disparities in science and math.

Outdoor preschools gain traction.

College Board cuts its A.P. Curriculum for African American Studies.

To read more, click on the following links.

The Weekly Connect 1/30/23

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:

K-12 opportunity gaps fuel differences in who goes to college.

U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona calls on educators to “raise the bar” on student achievement.

More schools are bringing in therapy dogs to help students cope.

To read more, click on the following links.

By the numbers: City Connects in Dublin, Ireland

City Connects is in its third year of operations in Ireland, where it’s running in Dublin’s North East Inner City (NEIC), an area with high concentrations of students who live in poverty.

Since then, the program has brought new services, supports, and enrichment programs to students. Here’s a by-the-numbers look at what has been accomplished, drawn from NEIC’s 2022 Progress Report.

The Weekly Connect 1.23.23

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:

Telemedicine services can help keep kids stay in class.

Support grows for universal pre-K programs.

Greenville, S.C., is introducing students to career education in elementary school.

To read more, click on the following links.

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