Mayor's Blue Ribbon Commission on Middle School Youth

Each school day, over 1,300 Cambridge middle school youth leave schools in the early afternoon. These same youth end school in late June, not returning to classrooms until September. What they do every day after school and over the summer months may have dramatic, lasting impacts on their school and life success. Mounting research suggests that middle school youth who engage in quality out-of-school-time (OST) activities perform better academically, demonstrate greater social and emotional competency, engage less in risk behaviors, and engage more in sports and exercise in comparison to youth who do not participate in OST activities. Therefore, it is of great concern that only one-third of Cambridge middle school youth regularly participate in OST programs and activities.

So when Vice Mayor Sam Seidel and I were appointed the co-Chairs of a commission focused on youth services, we decided to focus our work on the middle school youth of Cambridge. The Mayor's Blue Ribbon Commission on Middle School Youth-comprised of school department staff, human service providers, community partners, police, elected officials and families-completed a comprehensive strategic planning process over the winter and spring of 2009. As a result of this process, the Commission developed the Shared Youth, Shared Strategies strategic plan that seeks to unite city agencies, schools and community partners to greatly enhance out-of-school-time opportunities for middle school youth and families across the city.

The Shared Youth, Shared Strategies plan begins with and builds from a single citywide strategic goal:

To ensure broad participation of Cambridge middle school youth in quality out-of-school-time experiences that fosters both their present and future learning and life success.

To achieve this goal, the plan calls on city agencies, schools, and community partners to collaborate to pursue the following core objectives:

1. To increase enrollment of middle school youth in out-of-school-time programs.

2. To enhance the quality of out-of-school-time programs.

3. To foster youth connection to community by bringing together youth and caring adults from across neighborhoods, schools, cultural/ethnic backgrounds and professional communities.

This report will provide Dr. Young, the School Committee and the CPS administration and teachers with valuable information that will help us further understand the strengths and challenges of our current K-8 system, as well as help us figure out how to improve CPS programming for this age group. We need to be creative with our structure and develop innovative models to help our young people acquire the necessary skills to succeed in the 21st century.

No system can do it alone, and it is important that the School Committee and City Council continue to collaborate and communicate with each other. I am extremely proud of the work Sam and I have done to foster this relationship between the elected officials of Cambridge. However, the Shared Youth, Shared Strategies plan is only a start, and if re-elected, I promise to continue leading the effort to accomplish our goal and put the plan into action.