The Association kicks off work with 3 innovative summer transition pilot sites

August 5th, 2010

Last month, the Association awarded planning grants to three innovative school district and community partnerships to support a six-month planning process to enhance their summer programming for students transitioning from middle school to high school. The partnerships selected for this planning opportunity are the Philadelphia Youth Network (PYN) and the School District of Philadelphia (PA); Open Meadow Step Up and the Portland Schools Foundation’s Ninth Grade Counts Initiative (OR); and BELL (Building Educated Leaders for Life) and the Springfield Public Schools (MA).

The Association’s summer transition team is excited to kick off our work with the “pilot sites” with visits to their current programs this summer.  We will use what we learn about the unique needs of each site to help guide the focus of a professional learning community, which will include planning meetings and field experiences that aim to expose pilot sites to expert knowledge and exemplary program models, in order to help them build knowledge in a collaborative manner to inform their enhanced program plans.    We’re also looking forward to presenting with the pilot sites on this initiative at the Association’s national conference in Indianapolis this November.

The grants were made available through the Association’s ongoing field-building work with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which aims to use the summer time strategically to support the needs of youth entering high school to help keep them on track to graduate.  The grantees were selected based on feedback from advisors and experts from the field on the key needs for supporting the bridge to high school during an event hosted by the Association this past march in Tampa, Florida.

If you would like to learn more about this work and contribute ideas about inventive ways to use educational technology and digital media to boost college readiness, please visit the Next Generation Learning Challenges website or visit the initiative’s page on Facebook or Twitter.

Filed under: Transitions