Partners for Student Success - Fact Sheet

Description: Partners for Student Success (PSS) is a multi-year initiative that aims to more tightly align the efforts of schools, OST programs, social service providers, and other essential services in order to ensure that struggling students get the support they need to succeed. The long-term goal of PSS is improved academic and developmental outcomes for children targeted by this effort.


PSS is led by Boston After School & Beyond in collaboration with the City of Boston, Boston Public Schools, The Boston Foundation, Full-service Schools Roundtable, Harvard University’s Program in Education, Afterschool and Resiliency (PEAR), Ludcke Foundation, Massachusetts 2020 Foundation, Nellie Mae Education Foundation, and the Wallace Foundation.
Goals: Partners for Student Success will support schools to:

  • Establish intellectual frameworks and systems to identify strengths and needs of struggling students in the school and match them with appropriate programs, services, and specific strategies;
  • Align efforts with a constellation of service providers (OST enrichment, academic support, essential social services, etc.) strategically selected to address patterns of need identified within the student body; and
  • Adapt and align efforts of the school and service providers so that they are mutually reinforcing.

Program Elements: The PSS initiative will be piloted in fifteen public elementary schools over the next three years. A second group of five schools will be chosen by January 2007, and the third group by January of 2008.

  • PSS will specifically target schools who have not achieved proficiency on district benchmarks: that are in “Corrective Action” for failure to make “Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) as designated under the No Child Left Behind Act or classified under “Restructuring” by Massachusetts Department of Education for at least 2 years. 
  • The support provided to schools by PSS will include a Manager of Extended Learning Services (MELS), a newly created position in each PSS school.  This individual will report directly to the Principal and have overall responsibility for the goals laid out above. 
  • In addition, PSS will work with the schools on the establishment of frameworks and capacity building, including professional development for the MELS, to ensure schools are positioned to succeed.

The first five schools participating in the Initiative are:
        James J. Chittick Elementary School (Mattapan)
        James Condon Elementary School (South Boston)
        Marshall Elementary School (Dorchester)
        Maurice J. Tobin K-8 School (Roxbury),
        John Winthrop Elementary School (Dorchester)

The second round of five schools participating in the Initiative are:
       Louis Agassiz Elementary School (Jamaica Plain)
       Emily A. Fifield Elementary School  (Dorchester)
        Joseph J. Hurley Elementary School  (Boston)
       Charles Sumner Elementary School   (Roslindale)
       Young Achievers School for Science and Math K-8  (Jamaica Plain)

Partners:  Boston After School & Beyond in collaboration with the City of Boston, Boston Public Schools, The Boston Foundation, Full-Service Schools Roundtable, Harvard University’s Program in Education, Afterschool and Resiliency (PEAR), Ludcke Foundation, Massachusetts 2020 Foundation, Nellie Mae Education Foundation, and the Wallace Foundation.

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For more information contact:
Kevin P. Stanton
Boston After School & Beyond
(617) 345-5322, x20
kstanton@bostonbeyond.org

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