Flint Center for Educational Excellence
The Flint Center for Educational Excellence is an organization that will work with the community to help Flint kids thrive. It will lead and coordinate six cooperative efforts: a community education initiative, afterschool programming, the Flint Early Childhood Collaborative, a parent collaborative, a community council on education and a Network for School Excellence.
These programs and initiatives will work together to improve academic outcomes and well-being for Flint kids. They’ll be closely aligned to better serve students, parents, caregivers and families.
The new organization will be operated by dedicated staff who possess the expertise and experience necessary to implement and drive the programs, research and advocacy that are core to the mission of the new organization.
The Community Foundation of Greater Flint is the fiscal sponsor for The Flint Center for Educational Excellence and will lead its pilot phase of work until it becomes an independent nonprofit organization. The Center will be up and running in time for summer programming starting July 1.
The Flint Center for Educational Excellence will lead and coordinate six cooperative efforts:
- Community education, which is a school-based wholistic approach to supporting students and families with academic, enrichment, recreational, health, and other programs and services.
- Afterschool programming, which provides out-of-school-time activities and programs
for students.
- The Flint Early Childhood Collaborative, which supports best practices in early learning at Cummings Great Expectations and Educare Flint. The intent is to build a seamless system from birth into the K-12 system that works better for kids, families and schools.
- A Flint Parent Collaborative, which will build on existing avenues for engagement, creating opportunities for greater involvement and advocacy. The group will be composed of parents who share the desire to improve the education system for Flint kids, regardless of where they attend school.
- A Community Council on Education, which will bring together a broad set of stakeholders interested in bolstering the educational landscape in Flint.
- A Network for School Excellence, which will be a cohort of schools that will work together to improve educational outcomes. Each participating school will serve a significant number of Flint kids who are economically disadvantaged and are Black or Latino. School leaders will commit to tracking and sharing student data and to working together on shared interests to improve the educational environment, such as reduced class sizes, reading proficiency, leadership pipelines, etc.
Ja’Nel Jamerson, who holds a doctorate degree in education and previously served as executive director of Educare Flint, has been named executive director of The Flint Center for Educational Excellence. He will serve in this role as part of his work at the Community Foundation, where he is vice president for policy and P-20 partnerships.
“Our goal is to bring together strategic focus, collaboration, and commitment to excellence for the sole purpose of advancing outcoming for Flint kids” Jamerson says. “When kids thrive, communities thrive. I’m excited to see highly educated educators combine their expertise to drive programs, research, and advocacy that will give Flint kids the best opportunities to thrive in the paths they choose.”