Teach for America – Baltimore
Teach for America: Baltimore has been recruiting and developing teachers and leaders to expand educational opportunities for Baltimore’s children growing up in poverty since 1992. Today, there are 1,200 Teach for America alumni and teachers in Baltimore–80% continue to engage in work impacting low-income communities.This grant will continue TFA’s work in 1. recruiting top talent ( 95 new and diverse teachers–over 50% people of color); 2. building leaders in the classroom, schools and City (a total of 20 TFA principals and 3rd year teacher retention rate of 66%) and 3. Connecting TFA network to accelerate educational outcomes in Baltimore (the 2nd year of a new network strategy engaging alumni in collection impact).
GreenLight Fund
With the support of over 25 local and national funders, GreenLight Fund will launch GreenLight Baltimore as the 10th city in its growing network. Over the next five years, GreenLight Fund Baltimore will bring 3-4 social innovation non-profits into the city with the potential to fill gaps in Baltimore’s social service landscape and make a significant, measurable impact on the lives of low-income residents. GreenLight embeds itself in the local community, engages local partners to identify critical gaps, researches proven nonprofit programs, and then launches and manages selected programs to achieve impact in the Baltimore region.
Green Street Academy, Inc.
Green Street Academy, a Baltimore City Charter school for 870 6th-9th grade students, plans to construct and program a 7,000 square foot state-of-the-art STEM Innovation Center facility. This Center is envisioned to be the hub of the school, bringing together CTE programs in Construction, Design and Health, internships and jobs, dual enrollment, college counseling, and collaborative space for school day and afterschool applied learning/making and entrepreneurship programming. The Innovation Lab is expected to open in January 2021, and will serve over 600 students in afterschool, internship and summer programs.
Fund for Educational Excellence
The Abell-funded Baltimore City Schools report, “Preparing All Students for Economic and Career Success” (2019) uncovered issues and made recommendations for improving the school system’s Career and Technical Education program. As a working group created a four-year Master Plan for CTE, a number of questions arose that required more data collection and analysis. This grant has enabled City Schools to contract with Project Evident to analyze CTE coursework, facilities, teacher recruitment/training and student career interest. Final CTE program recommendations will enable the Master Plan to be complete by Summer 2020.
Baltimore Urban Debate League
The Baltimore Urban Debate League (BUDL), a national initiative, has reintroduced debate into Baltimore’s public school classrooms over the last two decades as a strategy to engage and inspire students from our city’s most under-resourced schools. BUDL has reached thousands of students from 4th grade to 12th grade, and changed their personal and academic trajectories by helping them discover their voice and reach their potential through debate. This grant will support the expansion of the Debate League to 53 schools (including 11 high schools) and serve over 8,500 students in the 2019-2020 school year.