The Connor Group Kids & Community Partners, recently honored by The Dayton Business Journal as Community Supporter of the Year finalist, grew in size, scope and impact in 2022. And it’s just getting started. In the spring, the organization broke ground on a $50-million campus for The Greater Dayton School. GDS, the state’s first private non-religious school for under-resourced students, opened its doors this summer at a temporary location. “We’re taking a revolutionary long-term approach to educating the whole child,” said Kids & Community Partners director Ryan Ernst. “That said, we’re already seeing dramatic development and improvement in our students. It’s a testament to the model, but more importantly to our founding staff. They’re just an unbelievably talented and committed group of educators.” The permanent campus will open in the fall of 2023 and feature a full-service health and wellness center. Also this summer, Connor Kids Academy expanded to Cincinnati, the program’s second market. CKA is an innovative approach to sports camps that provides kids with a potentially life-changing three-year experience. The program is delivered through partnerships with the University of Dayton and University of Cincinnati men’s basketball programs. Its curriculum, which focuses on creating healthy habits and teaching decision-making […]
Kids & Community Partners is a non-profit born out of a high-performance for-profit business. So when our associates began researching and vetting Road to Hire, it felt a bit like looking in a mirror. The Charlotte-based non-profit provides training and career guidance for underrepresented youth in the tech sector. It began as an equity and diversity initiative within Red Ventures, an innovative Internet marketing and technology company. “We basically incubated this for three years inside Red Ventures,” said Road to Hire CEO Kacey Grantham. “We were basically volunteers, running a non-profit like a business. It worked, so we spunt it off into its own non-profit.” Road to Hire provides training, internships and scholarships for youth typically underrepresented in tech careers. The program then partners with companies to place alums in high-paying jobs and provide support and professional development. Kids & Community Partners’ five-year, $5 million investment will help Road to Hire scale its services to reach more youth, potentially in new markets.
Long before the COVID pandemic forced elementary school students to learn online, two childhood best friends and recent college grads decided to harness the Internet to help underserved students with their school work. Stephen Chen and Neeraj Kapoor founded Learn to Be in 2008 and began connecting kids with free online tutoring. “We thought it was really, really impactful,” Neeraj said. “And we also knew we were only helping a handful of kids. We knew there were millions of others around the U.S. who needed this support and that there were millions of people like us who could provide the support.” The organization now serves more than 7,000 students. Kids & Community Partners recently made a five-year, $3.2 million investment to help it continue to scale and connect the millions of in-need students with millions of willing volunteers. Here’s how it works: A parent or guardian signs up a student via Learn to Be’s online form. The student is then matched with a pre-vetted tutor from Learn to Be’s volunteer pool. The tutor and student then meet regularly via the organization’s virtual classroom. Learn to Be students see an average test score increase of 15.8 percent and a GPA increase […]
Long before the COVID pandemic forced elementary school students to learn online, two childhood best friends and recent college grads decided to harness the Internet to help underserved students with their school work. Stephen Chen and Neeraj Kapoor founded Learn to Be in 2008 and began connecting kids with free online tutoring. “We thought it was really, really impactful,” Neeraj said. “And we also knew we were only helping a handful of kids. We knew there were millions of others around the U.S. who needed this support and that there were millions of people like us who could provide the support.” The organization now serves more than 7,000 students. Kids & Community Partners recently made a five-year, $3.2 million investment to help it continue to scale and connect the millions of in-need students with millions of willing volunteers. Here’s how it works: A parent or guardian signs up a student via Learn to Be’s online form. The student is then matched with a pre-vetted tutor from Learn to Be’s volunteer pool. The tutor and student then meet regularly via the organization’s virtual classroom. Learn to Be students see an average test score increase of 15.8 percent and a GPA increase […]
June 8, 2022 – Enrollment is underway for the Greater Dayton School, Ohio’s first private non-religious elementary school exclusively dedicated to under-resourced students. The innovative educational model will cater to the whole child and, according to its founders, set the bar for a national model that provides students access to all the resources they need to succeed. The school is slated to open Aug. 1, 2022, and serve 100 students in PreK through third grade during its first year at a temporary location. The school aims to serve under-resourced students living in every corner of the Greater Dayton community. Applications are currently being accepted online. “It has genuinely transformative potential,” said founding principal A.J. Stich. “We have the opportunity to do things differently. The end product is a super innovative model, individualizing the education experience for every kid, and it’s going to be incredibly impactful.” Greater Dayton School teachers are among the country’s best and most dedicated educators and were actively recruited nationwide, and the school continues to hire. Currently, staff has been teaching a free after-school reading and math tutoring program for 40 students in the community. The Greater Dayton School estimates investing $300,000 in each child’s education over […]
