How Government Buses Are Transforming Girl Child Education in Kano

The Communities in Schools program (CIS) places trained navigators in low-income schools to provide wraparound social support, helping students and families access public benefits, cover emergency expenses, provide behavioral counseling and address barriers that prevent students from succeeding academically. The non-profit has been helping students for 50 years, serving 2 million children across 26 states, and has seen significant academic and economic outcomes, including increasing high school graduation and college enrollment rates.

Self-directed learning centers in Massachusetts, such as North Star, provide an alternative for students who don't thrive in traditional schools. These centers allow homeschooled students to pursue their own interests through optional classes, tutoring, and community activities, with no mandatory attendance or standardized curriculum requirements. North Star has operated successfully for 30 years, growing from a handful of students to 65 expected enrollees in the coming school year.

Free school meal programs help improve students’ health, support better academic performance and combat hunger and food insecurity. Several states have passed legislation to keep free meal plans active after federal waivers ran out in 2022. In Michigan alone in October 2023, the 3,459 school meal sites across the state served 10,064,686 free breakfasts and 17,659,809 free lunches.

A Bessemer Elementary School, a telemedicine program launched in 2021 is combatting high rates of absenteeism by providing health care in school. Students can log into a computer at school and receive care, then head back to class rather than having to miss school for doctor visits or sick days. Since the program launched, absenteeism at the school fell from 49% during the 2021-2022 school year to 37% last year.

Mat-Su Central is a hybrid homeschool that provides a flexible, personalized learning environment for both students and their families. Each student receives an individual learning plan that takes the student’s strengths and weaknesses into account, while still ensuring they’re meeting course requirements for graduation. As a result of the pandemic and increased rates of bullying and anxiety among students, enrollment in this hybrid homeschool option has quadrupled over the past 20 years.

The KNOSK secondary school is working to reduce the number of out-of-school youth in Nigeria by providing students with a quality education for a daily fee much lower than other school options. The school offers various payment plan options and gives the students uniforms, lunch, and sanitary products.

As a stopgap solution to housing insecurity among students, Long Beach Community College launched the Safe Parking Program, which allows students to sleep in their cars in a designated lot that has Wi-Fi, bathrooms and showers, and security on duty. The pilot program started with 13 students and was later expanded to become a permanent offering.

In an attempt to close a gap in graduation rates for Black students, campuses in the California State University system, including San Diego State University and Sacramento State University, have shifted hiring practices to improve diversity among faculty and staff, opened resource centers, and implemented new career development programs for Black students. Between 2016 and 2022, Sacramento State's Black graduation rate improved from 21st out of 22 campuses in the system to ninth in the system, though Black students there still graduate at lower rates than average.

The Stay Over Program allows families experiencing homelessness with children enrolled in the San Francisco Unified School District to use a high school gym as a shelter.

Children of farmworker families, many of whom travel seasonally during the school year, often need help filling gaps in the curriculum. Since the 1960s, the Migrant Education Program has been providing states with access to federal education funds meant to assist the children of migrant families with meeting educational requirements.. The money is used to provide different levels of support, from summer instruction to specialized curricula, in the states that continue to accept funding.