How you can help thousands of students
Dayton Public Schools has six neighborhood school centers designed to serve as resources for students and their community with additional educational and social support. The services they offffffffffffer arepredominantly supported by volunteers, business and nonprofifits.
The goal of these centers is to close the achievement gap experienced by low-income and under-served students by encouraging school attendance (kids can only take part ina programif they come to school), improving discipline and supporting academics.
As part of our Path Forward initiative, the Dayton Daily News contacted the site coordinators for all six schools and asked how the community couldmost help them meet their mission.
Needs vary by school, though site coordinators for several neighborhood schools mentioned needing volunteers to mentor students. They particularly needmale mentors — and especially men of color.
“The power of one mentor, the research has shown, has changedthe trajectoryof kids’ lives, and that is (based on) research,” said Ruskin site coordinator Emily Gray.
“If( students ’) lives are completely and utterly chaos, that they can depend on the same person coming every single Thursday to care about them foronehour at 1 o’clock is the one thing that can literally, actually make them think, ‘Wait a second it’s worth it, I can try. I can do this.’”
Several mentioned needing volunteers who can be trained to help students with reading. Some could use donated items such as toiletries, booksandnon-perishable food items to send home with children. All of them said they need more mental health resources.
“We would really like to create some partnerships that would help out with mentoring students socially and emotionally,” said Andrew Diamond, site coordinator at Edison Elementary .“Reading help, math help and( science, technology, engineering, arts andmath) are also areas we are desperately looking for resources.”
The programs they offffffffffffer also serve the children’s families and communities.
“We are currently looking for an extreme couponer to help explain the process so that we can share those benefifits with our community,” Diamond said.
Cleveland Elementary runs a community garden and garden club for students .“Our Master Gardener volunteer is moving away and I know absolutely nothing about gardens, so any resources that could helpme keep the garden up and running would be greatly appreciated,” Site CoordinatorMegan Sullivan said.
Below isa list ofDPSneighborhood school centers, some of the programs each offffffffffffers and an estimate of the number ofpeopleserved. Anyone interested in supporting any of theseprograms orproposing apartnership cancontact the listed site coordinator.
DPS offers mentoring, tutoring and other programs in all 27 of its schools. If you are interested in volunteering or partnering with another Dayton school, contact the school district directly.
Edison Elementary
Program partner: Greater Dayton YMCA
Site coordinator: Andrew Diamond, adiamond@daytonymca.org
■ Backpack Friday (110 students): Reduces the need for food for families over the weekend by sending home itemswith children.
■ Basketball camp (30 students): Encourages active living and the importance of attendance at school daily.
■ BoysAgainst Bullying
(50 students): Gives peers the chance to talk through bullying experiences and develop resistance to negative peer pressure.
■ DancingDivas (25 students): Empowers kids through dancing by teaching discipline and consistency through dancemoves and appropriatemusic.
■ Edison Cafe (40 students): Studentsmay redeempoints earned by promoting a positive school climate for special treats, such as smoothies, frappes and snacks.
■ Girl Scouts (15 students): Builds girls of courage, confifidence and character.
■ Taylor’sGivingTree
(200 participants): At Christmastime a sponsor donatesmore than 500 toys for pre-kindergarten through third grades so each student can open a gift as if it was Christmas Day.
■ Young Entrepreneurs
(27 participants): Teaches students howto use resources available to create a profifitable and sustainable small business.
Fairview Elementary
Program partner: Omega Community Development Corp.
Site coordinator: Dion Sampson, ddsampso@daytonpublic.com
■ AFewGoodMen
Listening Group (10 participants): Provides mentoring.
■ FairviewUnited
MethodistChurch (1530 participants): Offffers ClassroomVolunteers Adopt-A-Classroom program.
■ FreedomSchool (40 participants): Summer programserves students of Fairviewand builds love of reading and literacy.
■ GirlScouts ofWestern
Ohio (About 250 participants): Builds girls of courage, confifidence and
character. ■ KidsHopeUSA
Mentoring (15 participants): Offffers mentoring.
■ ProjectWarmth (50 participants): Provides coats, boots and gloves to under-served students.
■ Scholars ofHope After
SchoolProgram( 70 participants): Provides additional hours ofmath, English language arts and enrichment activities.
■ Second Step (30-60 participants): Offffers social and emotional programming for students.
■ Shoes for theShoeless
(450 participants): Provides free shoes for students.
■ YMCAYouth and
Government (5-10 students): Training young people in public service leadership.
■ 5/3BankYoungBankers
(20 students): Offffers fifinancial literacy education.
Cleveland Elementary
Program sponsor: YMCA of Greater Dayton
Site coordinator: Megan Sullivan, msullivan@daytonymca.org
■ After-school program (50 students): Provides educational programming and enrichment.
■ Backpack Fridays (80 students): Provides food to children in need to take home over the weekend.
■ Chess Club (10 students): Teaches basic chess skills and children participate in a tournament.
■ Garden Club (50 students): Teaches children the basics of gardening and about difffferent environments and ecosystems.
■ Math Club (10 participants): Prepares fourth through sixth grade students to be profificient atmath skills at each grade level.
■ ProjectMORE (30 students): Helps students who strugglewith building flfluent reading skills
Kiser Elementary
■ Programsponsor: Dayton Children’sHospital
■ Site coordinator: DonnaMcCoy, mccoyd@ childrensdayton.org ■ Band (20 students): Students learn instruments with the goal of building musical abilities, increasing discipline and improving academic performance and attendance.
■ Basketball (10 students): Provides fifitness and athletic opportunities to promote teamwork, and assistwith discipline, attendance and achievement.
■ BigBrothers/BigSisters
(27 students): Increases developmental assets throughmentoringwith a caring adult.
■ Christmas atKiser
(75 students): Volunteer opportunities forUniversity ofDayton students to work with Kiser students.
■ Christmas atUD: Exposes fifirst and second graders to the University of Dayton and provides them with the experience of being on a college campus.
■ FamiliesNight (375 participants): Families participate in educational and fun activities that support the academic achievement, attendance and positive parenting of children.
■ Girl Scouts (57 students): Provides activities that support empowerment for female students.
■ GoodNews Club (17 students): Offffers faithbased outreach to students to discuss spiritual issues.
■ MentoringDay and
Afternoon (117 students): Mentoring programfor youth.
■ Project Read (22 students): Build reading skills through activities and offffers tutoring for students. ■ Science Night (375 students): Offffers STEM activities to students and families.
■ STEM/Literacy (33 students): increases academic achievement through hands-on STEM activities and reading activities.
■ Trunk orTreat (500+ participants): Brings children and families together to celebrate Halloween in a fun, safe way. ■ Walk theNeighborhood
(35 participants): Builds community relationships and helps identify family needs.
Ruskin Elementary
Program sponsor: East End Community Services
Site Coordinator: Emily Gray, ebgray@daytonpublic.com
■ BigBrothers/BigSisters
(20 students): Pairs trained adult mentors with students tomeet once a week at the school for a year.
■ CollegeMentors for
Kids (40 students): Pairs trained collegementorswith students in third through sixth grades tomeet once a week on theUniversity of Dayton campus for a year.
■ Family Night (137 participants): Fun and educationalmonthly activities designed to reinforce learning for children, provide
information about resources and build parenting skills.
■ FamilyService Association (20 students): Offffers family therapy to students and parents.
■ FoodbankWeekend Bags (125 students): Nonperishable food goes home every Friday for students and their families.
■ Kids Life Miami Valley (8 students): Matches trained adultmentorswith fififth and sixth graders.
■ MiracleMakers AfterschoolProgram (200 students): Provides remediation and enrichment in a trauma-informed programfocusing on the whole child.
■ MuseMachineArtist
Residency (150 students): A MuseMachine artist works with students in classrooms during the school day on performing arts.
■ ProjectMORE (12 students): Reading tutoring programto help kidsmeet or exceed the third grade reading guarantee.
■ QtheMusic (60 students): Atuitionfree after schoolmusic education programprovided by the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra.
Westwood Elementary
Program sponsor: Wesley Community Center
Site coordinator: John Terrell, jwterrel@daytonpublic. com
■ Afterschool program( 50 to 70 students): Afterschool programming.
■ Baby Ready Program: Ababy shower for pregnantwomen living in theWestwood area and connection to prenatal medical and support services.
■ Community garden
(Entire neighborhood): Partners includingHomefull operate a community vegetable garden tending by youth and adults in the spring, summer and fall.
■ FoodAssistance (Entire school): Food pantry programfor area families.
■ Leaderships forEquality
andAction inDayton (20 students): Provides tutoring to build academic skills and includes community organizing effffort to improve preschool outcomes.
■ Parent and family
supports (Entire neighborhood): Family supports such as social service case management, job readiness training, a culinary arts vocational programand adult basic education.
■ SummerFreedom
School (50 students): Summer programfor studentswith a focus on building a love of reading and increasing literacy. ■ Wright StateUniversity
partnership (Schoolwide): Wright State provides students to assistWestwood students through tutoring and other supports as part of servicelearning.