Turnaround For Children Awarded Prestigious State Grant to Bolster Work with High-Poverty Public Schiools

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$332,500 Grant Will Help Pilot Alternative to Suspension Program and Improve Teacher Training

April 5, 2013 (NY, NY)— Turnaround for Children (Turnaround), a non-profit organization that partners with high-poverty, low-performing schools to improve them, will use a $332,500 state grant awarded this week to bolster the capacity of its partner schools to address the instructional and emotional needs of children living in poverty, officials announced today. Specifically, the dollars will go towards training teachers to manage classroom disruption and increase student engagement, a key component of the organization's 3-5 year intervention strategy for schools. Additionally, Turnaround will partner with Bronx Legal Services to pilot a mediation program in the schools as an alternative to suspending students, in order to keep those children in school and learning. The plan will impact up to 6,400 students and 550 staff.

Poverty creates recurring and predictable barriers inside schools, including student disruption, which brings instruction to a halt and often paralyzes teachers and administrators who aren't trained in addressing these students' needs, said Dr. Pamela Cantor, M.D., President and CEO of Turnaround for Children. With this grant, we can strengthen teacher training and keep students in school where they have the best chance of getting the help they need to succeed. We want to thank Governor Cuomo and the Office of Children and Family Services for recognizing the importance of this strategy in transforming high-poverty, low-performing schools.

Turnaround for Children is among eighteen early childhood to youth-aged private and non-profit organizations awarded grants this week to improve the lives of at-risk children throughout the state. The organization, which has worked with more than 70 New York City public schools, has identified three things that lay the foundation for academic success inside high-poverty schools:

1. Building a student support system of school-based staff that gets children the help they need at school or in a community mental-health center;
2. Training teachers in effective management and instructional strategies that address two critical challenges in high-poverty classrooms – disruption and engagement;
3. And strengthening leaders' skills to drive school-wide improvement, creating a positive learning environment filled with high expectations

After three to five years working with Turnaround for Children, partner schools report higher attendance, fewer suspensions and 911 calls, and higher test scores. Teachers are more satisfied and they leave less frequently. Last year among schools with high rates of program implementation, suspensions were down 40% and serious behavioral incidents fell 26%. In schools that have partnered with Turnaround for two years, math and reading scores
improve at double the rate of peer schools.

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Turnaround for Children

Turnaround for Children, Inc. (Turnaround) strives to fulfill the promise of public education by helping high-poverty, low-performing public schools create positive learning environments that foster healthy intellectual, social, and emotional growth in every student. Turnaround assists schools in connecting to social service and other agencies to facilitate improved access to the array of services that students and their families need. Additionally, the behavioral intervention systems initiated by Turnaround create a structure in each school that supports increased communication and collaboration between schools and juvenile justice, child protective services and other child and family serving agencies. For more information visit turnaroundusa.org/.

Contact: Kerri Lyon
klyon@skdnknick.com/917.348.2191

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