Fund for Educational Excellence
The Summer Funding Collaborative (SFC) is an aligned fund that directs resources to high-quality summer programs for low-income children in Baltimore City. In 2019, the SFC included 13 public and private funders that, collectively, distributed $3.49 million to 84 programs, funding a projected 12,500 seats. This grant includes funding for between 15-20 non-profit organizations that will be determined in late winter 2020 through the SFC’s request for proposals as well as a fee for Baltimore’s Promise, the SFC’s administrative backbone.
The Ingenuity Project
The Abell Foundation launched The Ingenuity Project in 1994. Today, Ingenuity prepares and launches the next diverse generation of nationally competitive STEM leaders in Baltimore City, serving 750 students in grades 6-12. This grant will enable Ingenuity to expand and improve access to students of color and students living in concentrated poverty by opening a fourth middle school program at James McHenry School in West Baltimore and through the provision of tailored support and enrichment opportunities. Ingenuity will continue to serve as the exemplary accelerated math and science program that prepares Baltimore City students for selective colleges and STEM careers with its signature Practicum Research experience.
Urban Teachers
With Abell Foundation start-up funding, Urban Teachers launched a new model of teacher preparation in 2009, recruiting outstanding college graduates, training them in a year-long clinical preparation, and linking their certification to demonstration of effective teaching practices and student learning gains. Urban Teachers is currently training 100 new incoming Resident Teachers who co-teach with mentor teachers for the first year of a four-year commitment. With this grant, Urban Teachers will implement a new digital recruiting and marketing initiative that will more efficiently target talented and diverse candidates, with a focus on men, STEM majors, people of color, and speakers of multiple languages, for its teacher prep program.The goal of the project is to increase the number of highly effective, culturally competent teachers of color hired with no decline in the quality of candidates. As importantly, the new marketing approach is projected to cut the cost of recruitment by 40%, from a current baseline of $7,000 per hired candidate.
Next One Up Foundation
Next One Up provides long-term mentoring relationships and coaching, on the field and in the classroom, to meet the needs of over 115 high-risk young men in Baltimore from age 13 to 24. These students receive 300 hours of out of school programming on Sundays, school visits during the week, and a summer program providing academic support, study skills, community service, college advising, athletic training, and community service. The Abell Foundation will support the third, and final, phase of a new digital infrastructure for tracking student progress from jiiWA, a technology firm with a successful track record working with youth sports development programs.
Commodore John Rodgers, fiscally sponsored by Strong City Baltimore
Developed by child psychologists, the Tools of the Mind curriculum integrates cognitive, social, and emotional domains and creates child-centered, play-based, and language-rich classrooms. This grant will support the third year of implementation of Tools in 10 pre-kindergarten classes in the 100% Project network of turnaround schools.