In a California elementary school, parents have a classroom of their own

One year after LeBron James' I Promise School opened its doors, its students, picked for being some of the worst performing in Akron, Ohio, have shown significant improvement on district assessments. I Promise is funded like other public schools, but also benefits from an additional $600,000 from the James' foundation for more teaching staff, after-school programs, and a family resource center with G.E.D. preparation and career counseling. Teachers say these add-ons have been the key to the school's early success.

The Elevate program is a free, eight-week course that helps guides couples to reconnect with each other and develop their parenting skills. The program helps between 30 and 40 couples each year, in-person and virtually. Since its start in 2021, the program has reached more than 470 couples, 96% of which have said they leave the program feeling happier with their partners.

Spurred by state changes, an elementary in Tulsa, Oklahoma has transformed its approach to chronic absenteeism, adding frequent positive reinforcements for good attendance and building strong relationships with students to get to the root of attendance issues. “This is a solvable problem as long as people keep in mind," the executive director of Attendance Works said. "The solutions take time to unpack and address what’s keeping kids from coming to school.”

World Relief Durham hosts a summer program for kids. Like other summer programs, it is meant to reduce summer learning loss—but this is specifically for children from forcibly displaced families. The kids face unique challenges in school and in society, often having been witness to traumatic experiences, so in this program they take lessons, play games, and work with community volunteers to let them just be kids. The program started with 25 participants in 2017 and grew to serve 150 children in 2019.

Boulder Valley schools are working with Latino parents to create networks of community support, feedback, and insight about the success of Latino children in the district. Parents are working with the school district to make sure stereotypes and racial bias aren't limiting their children from receiving food services and quality education that fit their needs.

In the last decade, collaborations between non-profit student-support organizations and public schools have fostered a model called "Last-Chance Schools" with remarkable success. The program targets root causes for dropping out, including economic disadvantages, mental health challenges, violence, and unstable home lives. As several Boston charter schools demonstrate, use of social-emotional learning, conflict mediation instead of zero-tolerance discipline, and flexible curricula has helped boost graduation and college acceptance rates while lowering suspensions.

Through programs across the country, nurses, social workers, or trained mentors offer support to new or expectant parents, imparting skills to help them become better teachers for their children. Through regular home visits with the families, these programs are working to close an achievement gap between rich and poor children that starts as early as just nine months into a child's life.

Super Special Parents, a Massachusetts WhatsApp group geared toward families in the Brazilian immigrant community, provides a virtual space for parents of children with disabilities to get support and guidance in their native language around everything from understanding special education laws to finding housing. The group counts about 500 participating families and nine dedicated volunteers.

Small rural schools in New Hampshire achieved some of the state's highest reading scores by leveraging their size to create multi-grade classrooms, provide individualized support to all students, and build long-term student-teacher relationships. In result, these lower-income districts have outperformed expectations by the widest margins in the state.

The Lexington School for the Deaf provides wraparound family services including free American Sign Language classes and assistance navigating the health, legal and shelter systems, particularly for immigrant families. The gaps immigrant families face in accessing necessary services creates psychological distress, especially for children. But research shows community-based supports, like The Lexington School, help address those gaps and improve mental health outcomes.