Adopting A COMPASS Community School For The Holidays

Two COMPASS Community Schools had a very Merry Christmas last month– thanks to the National Honor Society of the Lehigh Valley Charter High School for Performing Arts and Target. The Charter School worked with United Way’s Director of COMPASS Community Schools, Jill Pereira, and the Education Investments team to wrap and deliver gifts to Calypso Elementary School before Christmas break.

Target coordinated with United Way to get a list of children’s clothing sizes and gift ideas. United Way picked up wrapped gifts from Target before Christmas and dropped them off at Lincoln Elementary.

The children at Lincoln Elementary school loved their gifts so much they created a ‘photo book’ for Target. Click here to view the Photo Book.

A big thank you to the National Honor Society of the Lehigh Valley Charter High School for Performing Arts and Target for helping the children at our COMPASS Community Schools have a wonderful Christmas.  

United Way’s Community Partners for Student Success (COMPASS) partnership links 10 area schools with their communities in ways that are giving public education in the Lehigh Valley resources and support that is crucial during these tough economic times. COMPASS provides funding, convenes partners to identify systems-level strategies to support youth succeeding in school, connects resources and programs to school sites to support enhanced school day learning, assists with on-site coaching and training to support implementation of the Community School model and collects and analyzes data to monitor progress of this systems level work. COMPASS Community Schools have experienced tremendous growth in family and community involvement, improvements in academic performance for individual students, and improved school climate.

On the national level, the Community School model has garnered significant attention following the appointment of Arne Duncan as the U.S. Secretary of Education. As the CEO of Chicago Public Schools, Secretary Duncan utilized the strategy to create more than 150 Community Schools in high need neighborhoods and has since championed the strategy as an innovative approach to supporting schools across the country. Endorsement of the Community Schools model via the national Coalition for Community Schools has been received from more than 170 national, state, and local organizations, including the two largest teacher unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association.