Last fall, Purpose Built Schools Atlanta partnered with the Boys & Girls Club of Metro Atlanta to provide a “learning pod” for approximately 70 students who were identified as having the potential to benefit from additional learning resources in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The club is serving as a distance-learning hub where students of all grade levels can come during the school day to do online classes. This full-day, five-days-per-week program provides a safe and supervised place for students to log in to their daily classroom instruction. There is no cost to participate, and the hub is providing a safe, positive, and engaging environment for students.
The Boys & Girls Club has a long-standing track record of providing youth with safe and enriching programming designed to enhance educational and social-emotional outcomes. On the heels of a successful beginning last fall, Purpose Built Schools and Boys & Girls Club have further expanded their partnership with a new and innovative model where the Boys & Girls Club will run their after-school enrichment programs on-site at Purpose Built Schools.
“This partnership was an innovative way to address both the widening achievement gaps, as well as the need for our parents to get back to work,” said Greg Giornelli, CEO, Purpose Built Schools. “This is the first time the Boys and Girls Club of Metro Atlanta has held their program off-site, and this idea of adopting a club model and implementing it on site at a school, or in our case, throughout a network of schools, is an innovative approach to help best serve our students.”
The club will shift to provide after-school programming for students at Thomasville Heights and Slater elementary schools, once Atlanta Public Schools reopens school buildings. There are plans to open a site at Price Middle School next August.