NHCS Pilots New Model with City Year

Since its inception in 1995 as one of the original fourteen charter schools in Massachusetts (only five of which are in Boston), NHCS has been committed to developing, testing, and sharing successful models and practices in the spirit of charter school innovation and education reform.

In this tradition, this fall NHCS launched a three-year pilot in partnership with City Year, the Boston-based national service organization, designed to enhance City Year’s impact in urban school systems across the country.

“The Neighborhood House Charter School is an exceptional school with deeply dedicated and creative teachers and leaders who challenge and inspire the children they serve,” says City Year CEO Michael Brown. “City Year is honored to partner with NHCS to undertake a national demonstration pilot to show the positive impact that idealistic young adults can have as tutors, mentors and role models for K-8 children. We are very excited to work with NHCS to invest in the development of our Whole School, Whole Child program. What we learn from working with NHCS we intend to take to schools and communities nationwide.”

As part of the pilot, Neighborhood House is hosting, training, and collaborating with a new kind of City Year corps whose members will support student learning in grades 1-8. The Neighborhood House management team is working closely with City Year to ensure that the pilot is designed and implemented in a way that will provide maximum benefit to students and, importantly, that it will be a replicable model.

“Our training program successfully prepared City Year corps members for their work in the classroom, and they have already begun developing relationships with the students,” says Sean Shirley-Davidson, Head of the Middle School. “The presence of City Year in the classroom provides more flexibility for teachers to engage students individually and in small groups, and the vast majority of teachers have already reported that, given the option, they would sign up to have a City Year corps member for next year.”

Headmaster Kevin Andrews is optimistic about the program. “We are excited about the possibilities of this pilot not just here at Neighborhood House but, if it proves as successful as we believe it will, throughout the Boston Public School System and in urban schools nationally,” he says.