Fellowship Will Help Create Opportunities

POUGHKEEPSIE – Dr. Eric Jay Rosser, superintendent of schools, was recently invited to join the William Julius Wilson Institute (WJWI) at Harlem Children’s Zone as part of its inaugural Place-Based Education Leaders Design Fellowship. Rosser will serve with other district leaders from urban, suburban and rural school districts across the county.

WJWI is a national resource for place-based, people-focused solutions that open pathways to social and economic mobility.

The fellowship will bring district leaders, their cabinets and community-based organizations together to explore how school districts can catalyze collaboration, coordination and strategic planning with community-based organizations to create cradle-to-career pipelines in their communities. The goal is to address the challenges of intergenerational poverty and stagnant academic achievement. School district leaders and the students they serve benefit from community partnerships and access to national and regional networks of supporters.

School district leaders are uniquely positioned to identify and engage high-impact community-based organizations and integrate them into comprehensive strategies to support students into adulthood.

Place-based, cradle-to-career strategies are the solution to comprehensively addressing in- and out-of-school factors that impact learning and opening pathways to social and economic mobility in historically disinvested neighborhoods.

Partnering with the EdRedesign Lab at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education and Chiefs for Change, district leaders will engage in a six month immersive cohort experience beginning this month.

Named for one of our nation’s most prolific African-American scholars on poverty and inequality, the William Julius Wilson Institute works with on-the-ground collaborators and national partners to deliver comprehensive strategies, support services, and tools that systematically root out poverty and close opportunity gaps in neighborhoods across America.