I want to thank the City of Promise board and staff for all their hard work over the past 18 months. This time last year, I was about six months into this job, feeling excited about the opportunity and nervous about the gravity of what City of Promise means to the Charlottesville community. I had a vision of what we wanted to achieve but wasn’t entirely sure how all the pieces would fit together.
Since then, I can report that we have:
Raised the most money in the history of the organization.
Promoted Jermaine Dias to the role of Assistant Director as we continue to build internal capacity.
Been accepted into a Harvard institute for leaders creating innovative impact.
Partnered with a national expert on community engagement.
Demonstrated impact through our Community Schools pilot at Trailblazer Elementary, which reduced participant tardiness by 22%.
Promoted Zee Howard to be a second family empowerment coach and increased the scope and depth of our Dreambuilders program, raising the family stipend from $1,500 to $5,000 per family and adding a second year to continue supporting families.
Hired our first-ever Director of Community Schools to solidify our role as leaders in this work and to construct an effective system to increase literacy and reduce chronic absenteeism across Charlottesville schools.
Built a platform and app in conjunction with our UVA data interns, fundamentally changing the way we track, analyze, and leverage information.
For all of this, I owe you, our supporters, a thank you. To everyone who has poured time, talent, and treasure into moving forward the mission and the work of City of Promise here in Charlottesville—you make this possible.
For the last 12-15 years, City of Promise has been steadfastly working at the edge of a neighborhood that seems to confuse decision-makers in Charlottesville. Our town has exploded economically during this time. The University is growing in size and stature, with its endowment in the double-digit billions. Housing prices are soaring. Yet, in this neighborhood (and others), there are high instances of gun violence, a search for quality job opportunities, access to childcare, nutritious food, extracurricular activities, and health and dental care. In the same neighborhood, our kids are experiencing high levels of chronic absenteeism and low levels of literacy proficiency.
Citywide, under 40% of our Black and economically disadvantaged students are reading on grade level. At Trailblazer, the home school for our Westhaven kids, that number is 22%, far below the division and state averages. Compare that to 66% of Black students reading on grade level at Baker-Butler in northern Albemarle County, outpacing their division and the state. So, why aren’t our students achieving at the level of their peers?
One of three things is possible:
The teachers and administrators at Baker-Butler are just better—which I’d disagree with. There are hardworking, committed, and highly qualified teachers in our Charlottesville City Schools.
Somehow, county kids are just smarter. As the proud father of two county kids, whom I adore, I can tell you that is also not the case.
The schools pull from vastly different socioeconomic groups with widely varying resource pools.
And it’s this point that brings us to our guiding principle—the thesis of our work at City of Promise:
Education isn’t a school problem. Education is a social problem.
During the K-12 years, our students spend over 80% of their waking hours outside of school. Given this, it’s imperative we redesign a system of coordinated investment outside the walls of our school buildings in all domains that support and amplify the educational opportunities of our children. If they are going to be expected to learn like their peers, we must invest in them and give them every opportunity to meet that challenge.
This doesn’t mean we should abandon our schools. Quite the opposite. I’m a big proponent of what public schools can be for our students. I attended public schools in Charlottesville City and Albemarle County. My parents were both public school teachers for over 35 years each. I married a public school teacher.
But the totality of one’s education doesn’t exist inside a building. It’s not on a smart board or when you’re playing "Hot Cross Buns." Some of the most impactful ways we can support and accelerate equitable systems of education are through focused and holistic community investment—improving the cultures of neighborhoods and resourcing homes. Reinforcing the spaces where our kids spend the most time, around the people who act as either their headwinds or tailwinds.
My dad used to say to me, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” If ever there was a time to be creative in reimagining public education, it’s now. If ever there was a time when our work was increasingly important, it’s now.
It’s time to creatively and sustainably support the single mom who works until midnight and doesn’t have the bandwidth to support her kid’s literacy like she wants to. It’s about interrogating the system that sends the single dad to my office at 10 a.m. the day before Thanksgiving because he’s going to get evicted at 1 p.m. over $21.50.
If not us, then who? If not now, then when?
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