Funding, administrative assistance to broaden for urban schools’ family-supporting City Connects program

C.J. McGowan, right, of City Connects, greets Saisha Torrence, who recently graduated from the eighth grade at Ascension Catholic School, and others July 9 upon their return from a week at Catholic Youth Camp near McGregor. DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

C.J. McGowan greeted 61 students getting off two buses at Ascension School in Minneapolis July 9 as they returned from a week at Catholic Youth Camp near McGregor, about two and a half hours north of the Twin Cities.

Parents were there, too, laughing, hugging and some tearfully smiling as they reunited with their children. McGowan shared smiles, hugs and fist bumps.

It was all part of a day’s work for McGowan as the City Connects coordinator at Ascension. She helped organize the trip for those children, particularly from the school, but also from Ascension parish and its neighborhood.

As an employee of Ascension working with the national, Boston College-based City Connects organization, McGowan helps meet the academic, social and material needs of all students and their families. City Connects coordinators are now serving nine Twin Cities-area Catholic elementary schools, with a 10th to be added this fall.

Eight of the 10 schools, including Ascension, are part of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ Drexel Mission Schools Initiative, which rose out of the archdiocese’s Roadmap for Excellence in Catholic Education. It is designed to help schools where at least half the students are children of color, and half the student body is eligible for free or reduced lunches.

The aim of City Connects and Drexel Mission Schools is the same: Strengthen each student’s classroom experience, meet any special needs and narrow an opportunity and achievement gap in education to break the cycle of poverty.

“The higher student poverty (is), the higher diversity, the wider the achievement gap,” said Laurie Acker, City Connects program manager in the Twin Cities, who helps schools hire coordinators and serves as a mentor and coach to coordinators.

“About 70 percent of the achievement gap is outside factors hampering students’ success,” such as hunger, housing instability and mental health needs, she said. “We provide continuous student support, tailored to their needs in housing, food, mental health assistance, academics.”

Shana Moses, 48, was among parents waiting for the buses and appreciative of McGowan’s work. Her youngest son, Lami, will be an eighth-grader at Ascension after joining the school in the fall of 2020, with the pandemic a prominent concern. He started online, but has high-functioning autism, and by last spring, it was best if he went in-person with less screen time and more people time, his mother said. McGowan set up a meeting with principal Matias Benito and all of Lami’s teachers, to allow Moses to explain her son’s challenges and get everyone on the same page. Increased understanding among all concerned has made school a joy for her son, displayed in part by his desire to go to Catholic Youth Camp, Moses said.

“It allowed me to gather them, so everyone could hear about his brilliance, rather than his defects,” she said. “To have those conversations, I think made for fertile ground. It’s like wilting flowers, they come back. And he loves the school.”

City Connects coordinators — funded in the Twin Cities by the local GHR Foundation since the foundation discovered and introduced the program in 2015 to the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis — are assigned to specific schools and meet each student individually. The coordinators also meet with each student’s teacher and school administrators to learn and meet students’ needs through appropriate school and community resources, such as Big Brothers, Big Sisters; Minnesota Reading Corps; Urban Ventures; Ready Set Smile for dental care; Feed My Starving Children; Minnesota Children’s Museum and the Minnesota Orchestra.

WANT TO HELP?

To learn more about Drexel Mission Schools Social Services and Drexel Mission Schools funds, and to contribute, visit ccf-mn.org/drexel.

McGowan, a licensed school counselor, said she knows every student by name and greets them as they enter school each morning. She follows their progress year by year, providing stability and continuity. Because she makes the connections for students and families with various community resources, teachers and principals have more time to teach and meet their administrative responsibilities.

“We do a full class review. We talk through each student’s academics, social, emotional, behavioral health and family needs,” McGowan said. “We share what we know and notice.”

Now, the need to support City Connects is broadening and two funds are being established and promoted by the St. Paul-based Catholic Community Foundation of Minnesota. In addition, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis is taking on more administrative and fundraising tasks to give City Connects long-term viability in urban Catholic schools. As support grows, GHR Foundation — which acts largely as risk capital for promising innovative programs — will adjust the financial support it has provided over the past six years. Since 2015, the foundation has invested $4.1 million in City Connects.

Already, an anonymous donor has given $250,000 to the Drexel Mission Schools Social Services Fund, which at this point largely consists of City Connects, said Meg Payne Nelson, CCF’s vice president of impact. Another anonymous donor is offering a matching grant of up to $250,000 for a second fund, the Drexel Mission Schools Fund, which will be used for academic initiatives, leadership support, enhanced cultural competency training and a commitment from the schools to have a professional, financial audit conducted annually, Nelson said.

“We really hope that the community will come together and support this,” Nelson said. If anyone is wondering how to help those in need, minority communities are truly struggling, she said. “Education is a way out of poverty.”

Jason Slattery, archdiocesan director of Catholic education, said City Connects and Drexel Mission Schools provide those who want to lend a helping hand with specific and reliable ways to make a difference in the lives of students most impacted by poverty, racial disparities and the social unrest that erupted in neighborhoods across Minneapolis and St. Paul after the death of George Floyd in May, 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic has hit families in those communities hard spiritually, physically and economically, he said.

“The pandemic and some of the difficulties we’ve seen in the last 16 months has created a crisis situation for students and their families,” he said. “They really need that extra support.”

VIEWPOINTS

Meg Gehlen Nodzon, education program lead, GHR Foundation: “We’ve seen such an amazing impact with students, particularly students of color, that I’m thrilled that donors of the Catholic community want to contribute to the program.”

Meg Payne Nelson, vice president of impact, Catholic Community Foundation: “We’ve missed that life is different for families of color, especially the economically challenged. It’s not just a little different. It’s hard to learn when you’re hungry.”

Jane Bona, principal, Immaculate Conception, Columbia Heights, on joining City Connects this fall: “I’ve known about City Connects in the years it’s been in the archdiocese. I remember thinking that is a program that I really need at Immaculate Conception. I was thrilled to learn I qualify for that support, not just for the students, but for their families.”