Mayor's Blue Ribbon Commission on Middle School Youth

One of the goals of the Innovation Agenda is to establish consistent start and end times for the 4 Upper School Campuses creating unprecedented opportunities for out-of-school time programming for upper school students. For the first time, 6th, 7th and 8th graders from across Cambridge will be able to come together for academic, athletic, artistic, and community service activities. We will have the capacity to develop and offer a more diverse set of high quality enrichment activities.

This goal came from the strategic plan developed by the Mayor's Blue Ribbon Commission on Youth Services, which I chaired along with City Councillor Sam Seidel. The Shared Youth, Shared Strategies plan 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 strategic plan has provided Dr. Young, the School Committee and the CPS administration and teachers with valuable information that will help us while we are implementing the Innovation Agenda. We need to be creative 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 continue to put the plan into action.