By Kaity Coisman
Contributing Writer
GREEN BAY – A partnership between Brown County United Way and the Green Bay Area Public School District provides the ability to grow the Community Schools Initiative and support local scholars and families.
Howe Elementary Community School recently accepted a $150,000 check from Brown County United Way as part of the Community School Initiative, which will go “… toward strengthening and building academic and social-emotional supports for scholars at Howe Elementary Community School.”
Howe Elementary School is known as “a neighborhood hub that supports students, families and neighbors by providing access to community supports such as academic, emotional, health and social services.”
Principal of Howe Elementary Community School Amy Kallioninen explained, “Our goal as a school is to have the best educational experience possible and to wrap around them and to help them be as successful students and community members as possible. And with this large, generous gift, our work continues so that when our kids arrive at school they really have the best chance possible. We are really looking at ways to use these partnerships to leverage and reduce the barriers that these kids come into school with. It will really make a great impact not only for our kids but for our families and our staff, so I am just so appreciative. And really this investment means that our kids get to be able to be stronger scholars, healthier students and just have a better shot at schooling and life in general.”
The donation finds its basis in the vision of Brown County United Way, which is “to help ensure that all neighborhood residents have ready access to strong systems of community support that will provide opportunities for economic growth, employment security, social connectedness, empowerment and self-advocacy.”
The contribution to Howe Elementary Community School will provide some specific resources for students, staff and families in the school district.
“One of the big major impacts is we have been able to partner with the Howe resource center to have a mental health counselor and all year – we have had a waiting list – a full waiting list of students that needed to access mental health supports, so one of the large things we are going to be able to do is add an additional mental health counselor through our partnership with the resource center,” stated Kallioninen. “The other things that we are going to do is look at how to deeper address attendance, we have some attendance concerns… We have some training for home visiting for our teachers to have a little additional training going in. Research will show that the more we are in the neighborhoods with our kids and families the more comfortable they are to come to school.”
A Community School is a neighborhood hub that supports students and families by providing access to academic, emotional, health and social services.
For more information, visit https://howe.gbaps.org/about_us/community_school.