For Immediate Release
October 16, 2020
McFarland School District, Natural Circles of Support, and
Wisconsin Center for Education Research
Named 2020 Wisconsin Partnership Program Community Impact Grant recipients
McFarland School District, in partnership with Natural Circles of Support (Madison, WI) and the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at UW-Madison, was awarded a 2020 Community Impact Grant from the Wisconsin Partnership Program at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. The award, of $1 million over five years, supports the initiative “Supporting Social Emotional Health in K-12 African American Students.”
McFarland School District Superintendent Andrew Briddell stated, “On behalf of McFarland School District, I am incredibly grateful to the Wisconsin Partnership Program for their support of the work we are doing to ensure that all of our students have an environment of challenges, support, and respect.”
Jeffrey Lewis and Marian Slaughter of Natural Circles of Support added, “On behalf of Natural Circles of Support, we are profoundly grateful and excited to have been awarded a Wisconsin Partnership Program grant. We look forward to supporting the McFarland School District in achieving one of its deeply held goals of co-creating, with all stakeholders, sustainable learning and teaching environments where African American students, along with their peers, experience high levels of academic achievement and healthy socio-emotional development.”
The McFarland School District-Natural Circles of Support (NCOS) partnership began in 2017 with student mentoring circles situated within the McFarland High School Black Student Union. Students who participated in mentoring circles consistently shared the positive impact that NCOS had on their lives. Gradually the work grew to include High School student and staff collaboration to improve school climate and culture around issues of race. At the same time, we established a mentoring circle at Indian Mound Middle School. We find our work with NCOS to be highly beneficial for our students, and very enlightening for our staff. When we learned that the Wisconsin Partnership Program at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health might be able to support our work further, we partnered with Dr. Christine Pribbenow at the Wisconsin Center of Education Research and developed our proposal, “Supporting Social Emotional Health in K-12 African American Students” to improve conditions within our school climate and culture that contribute to social-emotional health and well-being as prerequisites for academic success.
Christine Pribbenow, WCER Senior Scientist and member of the McFarland School Board said, “As the academic partner on this team, I look forward to using my experience as an interventionist and program evaluator to develop and study the ways that we can improve the climate for our students of color, which leads to a better learning environment for all students. As a parent, community and board member, this grant provides us with an incredible opportunity and the support to improve our district, for which I am truly grateful.”
This project is one of six grants funded by the Wisconsin Partnership Program at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health through its Community Impact Grants program. The projects were selected for their potential to create conditions, systems and policy solutions that advance health equity and lead to equitable and sustainable improvements in health.
