MLK Sr. Community Resources Collaborative awarded $4 million to address education disparities

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) – New money is now pouring into The Martin Luther King Sr. Community Resource Collaborative to help kids get a better education in Atlanta Public Schools.

The organization received the grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Education Innovation and Research Grant (EIR). The grant was given to organizations for educational innovation, research, and development of new solutions. The group will use a curriculum that is culturally responsive, which will address cultures, home languages, and more.

Shadeed Abdul-Salaam at Morehouse College said this is needed now more than ever, especially for underserved students.

“There’s been a lot of fall off that occurred in multiple communities because of access, because of tools, because of resources, teacher shortages,” Abdul-Salaam said. “Our goal is to design something that we know that has a special impact on our community,” he said.

According to a press release sent on the behalf of the organization, there will be a focus on students of color, English language learners, students with disabilities, students living in poverty and kids facing economic challenges or trauma.

Morehouse and Spelman College experts and students will provide teachers with training and support. They will also be co-developers of the curriculum.

“We’re actually going to be designing and creating a curriculum that’s based on social and emotional learning, that really is getting at the whole child. So, we’re looking at just engaging students to help them understand concept emotionally, socially, intellectually,” said Dr. Nicole Taylor, Associate Professor and Chair for the Education Department at Spelman College. “We’ll also be working with other partners such as CWK, which is Connect with Kids. They’re a top digital firm, educational organization and they really have mastered the art of storytelling through technology,” she said.

The project will be called, “Sankofa Chronicles: Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Curriculum from American Diasporas.”

“We’re really going to be looking at the diasporas, in the sense that we’re really going to be trying to connect students with things that they are familiar with—in terms of culturally, just looking at those who look like them, and just really trying to teach them through those lenses,” Taylor said.

It’s a multi-media curriculum that will include short-form documentaries and other text to help tell stories in the community that has a rich heritage.

“Looking at the stories of our people, looking at the stories of their people and really be able to grasp just concepts,” Taylor said. “Whether it’s humility or self-regulation, or emotional regulation or resilience through the people and their community,” she said.

Taylor said that through storytelling, students will be understanding the past and current history while moving towards the future.

“A lot of it goes back to if you don’t understand or roots, or foundation where you came from, then it’s hard to continue in the future to know what is needed, how to keep going, how to give, how to collaborate,” Taylor said. “So, the hope is for students to really understand, just the stories of the community, their own stories,” she said.

Taylor said throughout the next few months, they will be developing the curriculum while bringing in the college students. She said the next step after that will be to start engaging with the high school partners.

Leaders said students in Atlanta could start to see the curriculum next school year.

“We’re going to need to lean on all of APS, all of Fulton County Schools, and we want to identify students who are extremely strong or do well– as well as students who need help,” Abdul-Salaam said. “We’re going to go in and start off with a few schools here in APS and then we’re going to roll our programs out to the whole team eventually,” he added.

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