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"Safe Schools/Healthy Students"
Columbus, Ohio
| Partners: | Columbus Public Schools Franklin County Alcohol, Drub Abuse and Mental Health (ADAMH) Board City of Columbus Department of Public Safety | |
Columbus, Ohio, is the sixteenth largest city in the United States and faces many of the same challenges as other urban centers around the nation. The core of the city has been left out of a prospering economy and is experiencing increasing poverty, with 27% of the households in the city receiving public assistance. The school district serves almost 65,000 students: 34,495 in elementary schools, 13,519 in middle schools, and 14,636 in high schools. Minority students make up 60% of the student population, with 54% African American. Graduation rate is 56.8%, well below the state performance standard of 90%. Thirty-seven percent of the students are considered economically disadvantaged. In 1994, Columbus was designated an Enterprise Community (EC), with 18 census tracts in the city center that qualified for the designation. In March 1999, "Empowerment Zone" (EZ) status was conferred. All four Service Areas, or high school feeder areas, selected for initial implementation for Year One of this Initiative will serve communities located in the EZ.
The three partners in this effort will expand the delivery of services by also including Children's Hospital Guidance Centers, Columbus Health Department, Communities in Schools, Family Focus Centers, Grant/Riverside Hospitals, Kids in Different Systems, National City Bank, Neighborhood House, Project LOVE: Vaccinate Early, and several other agencies/organizations.
Through the establishment of school/community Resource Development Teams assigned to serve a high school and its feeder middle and elementary schools, students and families will be linked with education, prevention, intervention and referral services in the school and community. The project will begin with four Teams in its first year, and will expand coordination of services to additional high schools and feeder areas in each of the subsequent years. Pre-K and Head Start programs will be strengthened and expanded, especially by the addition of school nurses, and reading programs will be piloted to assist in the early development of reading skills. Franklin County's Safe and Drug-Free Schools Consortium will continue to operate its comprehensive educational/skills training programs. Prevention and early intervention programs and services will be made available to schools as needed from Community Mental Health Services. A Safe Schools Audit will be conducted of all policies, procedures, and activities. This will be followed by an expansion of after-school programs to students in all schools. The programs and services initiated as a part of this project will be integrated into the district's strategic plan. Most importantly, strong partnerships between school and community service agencies and providers will benefit the students and families within Columbus Public Schools.
Partnerships Make a Difference, an organization formed to assist schools with program planning, implementation and evaluation, will supervise the evaluation efforts, using a variety of instruments, both quantitative and qualitative, to assess the various indicators.
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