Read descriptions of these timely, early-stage projects that are aiming to shift practice in the social sector.
PhillyGoes2College, a project of The Mayor’s Office of Education, launched Connect2College (C2C), an initiative featuring a web-based app and text messaging tool that provide users with college access information. The online and mobile tools supplement and enhance C2C’s work with community-based organizations to provide on-site college planning information. This new approach utilizes scarce resources more efficiently to provide citywide access to information and to foster a college-going culture.
Update:  Through C2C, The Mayor’s Office of Education has strengthened 24 organization’s capacity to offer college access resources and services. Awareness of C2C has grown and more residents are accessing C2C through the website, the texting platform, at partner sites and through one-on-one appointments with C2C staff. From the launch in January 2015 through October 2015, the website had 6,962 users, the texting platform had 428 subscribers, the Facebook page had 1982 likes and there were 242 new Twitter followers demonstrating the reach of C2C’s message.
Funding supports The School District of Philadelphia’s School Redesign Initiative which provides school stakeholders with the time, resources and support needed to develop and implement research-based school redesigns that will accelerate student learning.
A national model for project-based learning, the Workshop School will establish Workshop Industries, a school-based business incubator that will allow students to go to the next step in idea development—actually creating and executing business and marketing plans and delivering products. Through a ten-week entrepreneur course and ongoing work at the incubator, students will be exposed to engineering, science, math, marketing, product design, finance, sales and supply chain management.
How do you get kids to eat healthy food? Tackling that age-old quandary will require the right set of partners. Smell and taste behavioral scientists of Monell teamed up with The Vetri Foundation to test whether combining accepted science and delicious cuisine can catalyze healthier eating in America’s public schools.
Funding supported the planning and fall 2014 implementation of Building 21. Building 21 is an innovative new school model that seeks to engage and motivate students in a way that is consistent with the expectations of our technology-focused society, and endow students with critical skills and academic content in a rigorous fashion. Read more about Building 21 on our Get Inspired page.
Update: Building 21 opened in September 2014 with its first class of 150 ninth graders. The school will add a grade each year. Students are benefiting from Building 21’s initial anchor partnerships with the Vetri Foundation and Temple University and one-to-one access to Chrome Books. In partnership with the School District of Philadelphia’s Office of New School Models, Building 21 has developed supporting materials for their competency based model which personalizes learning for students through the use of adaptive technology, project-based and applied learning experiences.