The following resources might be helpful to school districts and the community partners who work with them.
How Adding High School Counselors Saved Colorado More Than $300 Million. Money spent to bring in more middle school and high school counselors helped keep almost 1,000 at-risk students in Colorado schools and send more of them to college, a new report shows. The state-funded Colorado School Counselor Corps grant provided $16 million to 59 schools between 2010 and 2015 in an effort to keep students engaged and chart a course — unfamiliar to many low-income students — toward college and career. (Chalkbeat, July 19).
Thirty High Schools with Low College-Going Rates will Get Extra Counselors Under Tennessee’s Newest Drive to 55 Initiative. A new resource to get students to college is coming to high schools across Tennessee — or at least about 6 percent of them. Gov. Bill Haslam announced on Thursday a program to provide college counselors to 30 public high schools whose students attend college at a rate lower than the state average. (Chalkbeat, May 19).
‘Islands’ That Separate Education Haves From Have-Nots. Freehold Borough is what a new report calls an “island district” — and it’s not alone. The report, from a nonprofit called EdBuild, maps 180 of these islands around the country: Districts that, by historical accident or for political reasons, lie completely inside other systems with a disparate poverty rate and often different funding levels. (NPR, July 16).
ACT Now Quality Standards for Afterschool Programming. ACT Now is a statewide coalition that advocates for affordable and quality afterschool programming for Illinois’ youth. In collaboration with statewide stakeholders, they created Quality Standards to help programs and local communities stimulate conversations about quality, what it looks like, and why it matters. The standards also provide guidance for professional development focus areas and creating an improvement plan. You can find the Quality Standards, resource guide, and training dates online.
