In viewing the e-newsletter from Harlem Children Zone (HCZ) website, I just learned that they are building a new school and community resource center in New York City. “The Obama administration’s vision for community revitalization challenges housing authorities across the country to undertake comprehensive plans for neighborhood development that integrate housing, schools, commercial corridors, community facilities, improved infrastructure and transportation.
Through a partnership with the Harlem Children's Zone (HCZ), NYCHA is taking on this challenge to transform communities, and empower and engage residents. The Harlem Children's Zone (HCZ)/ Saint Nicholas Houses Project will bring to the community:
• A new charter school, operated by Harlem Children's Zone, will be located on the grounds of Saint Nicholas Houses. HCZ's Promise Academies have outgrown their current facilities and they have been looking for a location within its Zone to build a new school building.
• Building a school at St. Nicholas Houses also provides an opportunity to re-introduce West 129th Street between Frederick Douglass and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevards. Building a school and community facility at St. Nicholas Houses meets the dual goals of NYCHA revitalizing public housing neighborhoods and HCZ expanding services to families in public housing.
• No residents will be displaced or buildings demolished as part of this plan.”
Education is not depending on a child’s family background. Student learning is fostered by policies that consider the strengths that each child brings as well as being active, engaged, and supportive to meet the expectations for each student. Giving low-income and minority children a challenge and rich learning opportunity can have a profound positive impact on their lives, and that is what Harlem Children Zone does.
New insight for this week from the e-newsletter is “for children to do well, their families have to do well. For families to do well, their community must do well also. That is why HCZ works to strengthen families as well as empowering them to have a positive impact on their children's development.”
References:
http://hcz.org/
http://www.hcz.org/images/stories/pdfs/St.%20nicholas%20groundbreaking.pdf
Tree of love
This was a gift given to me on my last day of student teaching in Leesburg, Ga by the students and my master teacher in May of 2010. I treasure this gift because it reminds me of the passion and the ambition they felt for me.
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