Learning Network Offers New Opportunity to Engage Community

This appeared in the August 2011 Excelsior.

On June 14 at the downtown Kalamazoo Public Library, the Learning Network of Greater Kalamazoo announced receipt of grants totaling $11 million over the next five years.

The Kellogg Foundation will provide the Learning Network with $6 million over three years, for the purpose of funding several initiatives related to literacy (early language development, reading, and writing). These initiatives include parent education for the parents of newborns, parent education for the parents of 3-4 year olds, family literacy, and literacy for struggling readers. The Kellogg funds will also support a two-year pilot of KC Ready 4s, an initiative to improve the quality of pre-school and to increase the number of children in pre-school in the county. The Kellogg dollars will also fund some work in children’s health and significant community engagement.

The Kalamazoo Community Foundation (KCF) grant funds $5 million, $1 million a year for five years.  Roughly a third of the $1 million annually goes to support the network, the writing of other grants, and all fiscal and reporting responsibilities associated with the Kellogg and KCF grants. The other funds annually will be used to further the goals of the network.

The Learning Network has five goals: (1) literacy, (2) college readiness, (3) children’s health, (4) urban vitality, and (5) economic development.

At present, six other partners serve with me on the Learning Network: Dr. Juan Olivarez, CEO of the Kalamazoo Community Foundation; Dr. Charles Warfield, president of the Metropolitan Kalamazoo NAACP; Dr. Randy Eberts, CEO of the W.E. Upjohn Institute; City of Kalamazoo Mayor Bobby Hopewell; Dr. Janice Brown, executive director of the Kalamazoo Promise; and Sheri Welsh, former chair of the Greater Kalamazoo Chamber of Commerce. Dr. Olivarez has accepted the presidency of Aquinas College and will be replaced by Carrie Pickett-Erway, vice president of the Kalamazoo Community Foundation. We wish Dr. Olivarez well and thank him for his community leadership.

With funds from a previous Kellogg grant, KPS has begun family literacy pilot programs this summer at four sites in the community: Open Door Ministries on the east side, New Genesis on the north side, and the Boys and Girls Club and the Hispanic-American Council on the south side. We have begun parent education pilots for the parents of newborns and the parents of 3-4 year olds at three of these four sites. Work from these pilots will inform the shape and development of these programs in the future.

In the coming months and years, the network’s activities will grow and mature.  What will remain constant will be a focus on improving the lives of children, particularly those who are most vulnerable, both as an end in and of itself and as a means to creating a stronger community.

We thank our two contributing foundations for their support, as we thank the dozens of community partners who regularly work to strengthen the Kalamazoo community as a place for children to grow up. We also thank the Promise donors, who have inspired us with their generosity. We have great challenges in our community, but a great spirit of progressiveness and substantial wherewithal with which to address these challenges.

Michael F. Rice, Ph.D.
Superintendent
Kalamazoo Public Schools
July 15, 2011