Citizen Schools :: Growth Strategy

About Us

Overview

Our History

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Our Leadership Investors

These companies have provided essential support for Citizen Schools programs nationwide.

Growth Strategy

Our ultimate goal is to transform education so that all kids graduate high-school on time and prepared for college and work in the 21st century.

We believe this can be accomplished by expanding the learning day to provide students more time, more relevant learning experiences, and more caring adults—a second shift of trained and energetic educators made up of a wide range of citizens.

Expanding our organization is key to accomplishing this vision. But our growth is designed to produce outcomes, not merely outputs. It is not about having a Citizen Schools program in every school in every state across the nation. Our strategy is to prove the viability of the model and create long-term conditions for us and others to replicate and sustain it—resulting in a transformed approach to public education nationwide.

This means demonstrating results that lead to increased high-school graduation and college and career readiness. Each state and district that partners with us becomes a “proof point” for education reform through expanded learning. As the number of youth served and volunteers engaged increases, and our results continue to demonstrate that our model makes long-term impact, we will inspire reform, engagement and transformation of education across the country.

The foundation upon which our growth is built is high-quality programming in each community we serve—as measured by in-school indicators such as

Attendance
Grades
Grade promotion
Behavior
On-time high school graduation
College-going rates
21st century & leadership skills

But we believe the impacts grow exponentially when we achieve scale—a point at which these results begin to generate systemic change. We begin to see statewide investment in expanded learning time, integrated service support schools, or community schools. Policymakers, state education officials, funders and superintendents are energized to address education challenges through re-imagining the learning day. And grassroots efforts develop across the country, demanding that more citizens have the chance to participate in educating children by engaging them in hands-on learning activities.