BOSTONS HIGHER GROUND INC
384 Warren Street, Roxbury, MA 02119 www.higherground-boston.org

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Organizations Filed Purposes: TO CONNECT CHILDREN, YOUTH, AND FAMILIES IN BOSTON'S UNDERSERVED COMMUNITIES TO EXISTING SOLUTIONS AND SERVICES THAT CONTINUE TO IMPROVE, AVOID DUPLICATION, AND EMPOWER AND TRANSFORM LIVES FROM CRADLE TO CAREER BY ENGAGING COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATIONS AND KEY STAKEHOLDERS IN AN EFFECTIVE AND EFFICIENT SERVICE DELIVERY MODEL.

To connect children, youth, and families in Boston's undeserved communities to existing solutions and services that continue to improve, avoid duplication, and empower and transform lives from cradle to career by engaging community-based organizations and key stakeholders in an effective and efficient service delivery model.

Education - Support for Local Schools: In fiscal year 2020, Higher Ground supported three local schools, Higginson K0-2 Full Inclusion, David A. Ellis K-5, and Higginson Lewis K-8, by arranging placement of social work graduate students from local universities to support students and families. We reviewed transformation plans at the David A. Ellis and Higginson Lewis Schools to determine best way Higher Ground and its partners could support the schools' efforts. We joined the Higginson K0-2 Full Inclusion School community and celebrated completion construction of a new playground for the nearly 200 students ages 3-8 after securing a $500,000 grant from Boston's Community Preservation Fund. The success of securing resources and completing the playground construction was due to collaboration with the school principal, teachers, and parents and with Boston Public Schools (BPS). In the final quarter of FY 2020, Higher Ground connected the Higginson Lewis School with JFYNetWorks which provides on-line support in math and English Language Arts (ELA). This resource became even more important as the schools shut down for the balance of the school year due to COVID-19. Increasing number of students logged on and made progress in math and ELA. Higher Ground, with support of local school leaders, applied and BPS awarded funds for a Summer Learning Academy (SLA) with priority for students who are homeless or were recently housed. As a result of the schools' shutdown, the SLA was entirely on-line. Higher Ground worked with several partners and assembled a program with a focus on the environment and biodiversity. The five-week program served 50 students in grades K-8.

Education - Early Childhood Development: We completed the third year of a three-year agreement with the Crispus Attucks Children's Center (CACC). Higher Ground continued to support CACC in increasing its enrollment closer to capacity and to serve more children and families in Higher Ground's target area. With Higher Ground support, CACC secured a BPS Universal pre-K (UPK) award with funding for up to three classrooms as a community program site in the city of Boston effort to provide high quality pre-K education for all Boston 4-year-old children. We continued to support CACC with its efforts to complete a much-needed capital improvement project and had nearly completed construction when the Center had to close, and construction had to halt due to COVID-19. Improvements including upgrading of CACC's heating, ventilating and air conditioning system, replacement of windows and interior reconfiguration of several classrooms to increase the amount of space for gross motor activity for infants and toddlers were finally completed at the end of calendar year 2020.

Family-Led Stability Pilot: In fiscal year 2020, Higher Ground continued to play a lead role in two major collective impact initiatives. The first was its collaboration with a citywide working group, including representatives of the city of Boston Education Cabinet, BPS, Department of Neighborhood Development, Boston Housing Authority and three other nonprofit partners - Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, Project Hope and New Lease for Homeless Families -- to continue to implement a pilot program to address the growing challenge of homeless children in Boston schools. The Family-Led Stability Pilot (FLSP) was officially launched in January 2018 with an initial focus on seven Boston schools including Higginson K0-2 Full Inclusion, David A. Ellis K-5, Higginson Lewis K-8, William Monroe Trotter K-8, Dudley Street Neighborhood Charter School, Orchard Gardens K-8 and Dearborn STEM Academy. During the 30 months following the launch, FLSP housed more than 120 families with 200 children attending the seven schools. We hope to complete the housing of families of the remaining homeless students by the end of the 2020-2021 school year, and to scale up to house the families of more than 4,000 homeless students in all Boston schools.

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Data for this page was sourced from XML published by IRS (public 990 form dataset) from: https://s3.amazonaws.com/irs-form-990/202131329349304013_public.xml