Removing Barriers and Building Community

This commentary was originally published in the Racine Journal Times.

Oct. 22, 2018 — In 2016, the newly built Knapp Elementary opened as a community school in partnership with Racine Unified School District and United Way, introducing the LIFT strategy to Racine County. 

LIFT stands for Link and Inspire for Tomorrow. It is a strategy focused on building thriving community schools—neighborhood hubs that bring together families, educators, and community partners to provide students, families, and community members with quality resources to succeed in school and in life.

This strategy typically takes five to seven years to show tangible results. However, we’ve already seen an impact after just two years. The year before opening our community school, 35 percent of Knapp students were at or above grade level in math and 17 percent in reading. After the 2017-18 school year, those numbers rose to 51 percent and 41 percent respectively. In addition, 52 percent of students participated in afterschool programs. These participants showed higher academic achievement than their peers. We also provide continuing education and family programming for adults, including the Families And Schools Together (FAST) program and certificate courses from Gateway Technical College and UW-Extension.

These academic improvements are supported by high rates of success in Knapp’s programming and resources. One example is the New Beginnings mental health clinic. Thanks to a collaboration with Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, which provides staff to run the clinic, this clinic serves students throughout the school day and in the evenings.  

The high stakes for mental health make the New Beginnings clinic an invaluable resource. To ensure that no family is turned away from the clinic for financial reasons, a combination of funds from United Way of Racine County, Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, and RUSD support the clinic. About 10 percent of Knapp’s students currently receive services from the New Beginnings clinic.

Knapp Elementary also established the only dinner program in RUSD, providing nearly 3,000 free dinners to local families over the last two years. Dinner is served twice a week in conjunction with our afterschool program. Parents are grateful for the additional support, and they find the dinners an invaluable chance to connect with other parents and the afterschool program staff. Relationships like these are foundational to community.

Another Knapp Elementary resource is United Way’s VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) initiative, which hosts a site at Knapp Elementary for its families to receive convenient, free tax preparation and filing. Since 2016, VITA returned nearly $100,000 in refunds to Knapp families.

Just a few of the other partners that contribute to Knapp Elementary’s extensive programming and resources are Gateway Technical College, the Girl Scouts of Southeastern Wisconsin, and Focus on Community.

We look forward to building on LIFT’s success as we expand this work to Julian Thomas, which will become Racine County’s second community school beginning in 2019. United Way’s 2018-19 Community Conversations cycle will collect input from parents, students, staff, and neighbors on their hopes, aspirations, and vision for the Julian Thomas neighborhood. This input, along with the School Improvement Plan, will guide the type of programs, supports, and engagements that will be provided at the school.

The academic and social-emotional gains our students have achieved cannot be attributed to only one program or group. The work of a community school allows teachers, staff, community partners, and families to unite, build community, design a future for our neighborhoods, and watch the life path of our students, families and neighbors change for the better.

To learn more about LIFT, visit UnitedWayRacine.org/LIFT.