“Promise Neighborhoods” To Get $40 Million From U.S. Dept. Of Ed

Photo: MEDA

The U.S. Department of Education today awarded over $40 million to the newest cohort of Promise Neighborhoods grantees across seven states. This announcement comes as U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona continues the Department’s “Return to School Road Trip” in Indiana today.

“Promise Neighborhoods build on the rich resources, ingenuity, and creativity of communities to bring together schools, nonprofits, and other organizations in a concerted effort to meet the needs of children and youth,” said Secretary Cardona. “ Through these new grants, we are announcing today, more children in communities all across the nation will have access to cradle-to-college and career supports that will help them reach their potential and thrive.”

Authorized under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), as amended, the Promise Neighborhoods Program is intended to significantly improve academic and developmental outcomes for children living in communities of concentrated poverty. The program does this by enabling education and community leaders to address the many interlocking impacts that concentrated poverty exerts on a child’s educational journey.

Grantees’ applications proposed pipelines of programs and services developed specifically for the students in their communities. These services will support students from early childhood through the course of their K-12 education.

The Department made awards to seven grantees:

• The South Ward Children’s Alliance of Newark, New Jersey, will expand the reach of its current Promise Neighborhoods initiative to two additional South Newark neighborhoods.
• The John H. Boner Community Center of Indianapolis, Indiana, will build out its comprehensive home visit program and assign students college and career coaches to help them explore post-secondary education pathways.
• The Lancaster County Partners for Youth in Lancaster, South Carolina, will expand its Baby College program and create a new, comprehensive out of-school-time program that infuses academics and enrichment, and serves elementary, middle, and high school students.
• Klamath River Promise, located on Yurok tribal lands in California, will target historically high rates of chronic absenteeism by hiring part-time attendance specialists for each of the schools in its Promise Neighborhood.
• Delta Health Alliance in Mississippi has already doubled kindergarten readiness at its two existing Mississippi Promise Neighborhoods and will integrate 24 new evidence-based school, family, and community programs into its existing cradle-to career pipelines.
• The Broward Up Promise Neighborhood, in Broward County, Florida, has engaged partners to specifically serve students experiencing homelessness, foster-care involved youth, teenaged parents, and students who have been exposed to the juvenile justice system.
• Connecticut Children’s of Hartford will collaboratively design, implement, and evaluate the North Hartford Ascend Pipeline, a comprehensive prenatal through career pipeline that significantly improves the academic and developmental outcomes of children and their long-term well-being and quality of life.

President Biden’s FY22 budget includes a $10 million proposed increase for Promise Neighborhoods to reflect the Administration’s priority on expanding community-school partnerships to better meet the comprehensive needs of underserved communities.