CityBridge’s first Breakthrough Schools investment is focused on providing “embedded, intensive anti-poverty supports for students.”  In 2010, we made a significant commitment to bring the New York-based nonprofit Turnaround for Children to Washington.  Turnaround for Children launched in three of the city’s Ward 7 charter schools, where it organized and upgraded the schools’ programmatic responses to the social-emotional needs and academic delays that are so common to children living in poverty.  In 2011, Turnaround for Children will begin work in DC Public Schools. 

Breakthrough Schools’ second investment is in the Philadephia-based Scholar Academies, to create DC Scholars.  CityBridge is supporting DC Scholars’ whole-school turnaround work at Stanton Elementary School (DCPS) and the creation of a new stand-alone public charter school, DC Scholars Public Charter School, to serve students in DC’s lower-income wards. 

CityBridge is actively seeking partners with an established track record in whole-school turnaround.  Although the city has already attracted a number of strong organizations as partners in this work, more capacity is needed.  CityBridge seeks to continue building momentum behind school turnaround by investing in successful practitioners and support organizations working in the city.