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Some of the students at Horace Furness High School and School of the Future chosen for the Academy at Penn program. From left to right, Maurice Morris, Marlen Cornejo Gonzales and Saw Win, students at Furness. Jeremiah Andrews and Kylee Robinson, both students at the School of the Future. (Photo courtesy of Foundations, Inc.)
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This summer, 50 ninth-graders from two public high schools will participate in an intensive, tailored program to boost college and career pathways for students in underserved communities, with a focus on first-generation college students.
The School of the Future in West Philadelphia and Horace Howard Furness High School in South Philadelphia have been chosen for the program, called the Academy at Penn. Each school will send 25 students.
Led by the nonprofit Foundations, Inc., the program brings together the Philadelphia School District; philanthropist Robert Schwartz, president of the Schwartz Creed Foundation; the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education and the Consortium for Policy Research in Education, or CPRE, at Penn.
Rich Mitchell, the executive director of the Academy at Penn, said Schwartz brought the idea to Mitchell’s employer, Foundations, Inc., and lined up $8 million in funding for five years. The program is technically in its second year as the first was used for planning.
“The main thing is it’s completely holistic and personalized,” said Mitchell, former principal at William W. Bodine High School for International Affairs. “Every support the students need is included in this program. It’s a unique collaboration.”
For example, students in the cohort will have access to a counselor and a social worker to monitor their social and emotional well-being, he said.
Mitchell said the program does things public school principals strive to do but usually lack the funding to accomplish.
The Academy at Penn will focus on these key strategies to complete its goal:
But the program will also expose the students to careers, class trips, mentoring and intensive tutoring and classes on subjects like entrepreneurship. There will also be a focus on industry certifications and credentials.
“We understand that not every student is going to college,” Mitchell said. “It’s based on what the students want.”
For the next three years, additional groups of 50 students — again, 25 from each school — will be selected for the program for a total of 200, including this first year.
In addition to Saturday programming on the Penn campus, the university this summer will run a four-week, paid immersion program for the students. They’ll be exposed to the university’s veterinarian school, its urban farm program, finance at Penn’s Wharton School, Penn Brain Science Center Virtual Reality Lab, Penn Cultural Resource Center and Penn’s various libraries.
“The Academy at Penn demonstrates what is possible through the power of partnership,”
Superintendent of Schools Tony Watlington, Sr., said in a statement. He thanked the partnership for its commitment to students from underserved communities and first-generation college students.
Katharine Strunk, dean and professor at Penn’s Graduate School of Education, said the program is an example of the university’s dedication to improving educational outcomes for Philadelphia students.
Class trips will include visits to the Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, Swarthmore College, the Tiger Woods TGR Learning Lab at Cobbs Creek Golf Course and the Pocono Mountains.
“The launch of the Academy at Penn is the realization of a vision to create a model that can transform the future of high school students nationwide,” Schwartz said in a statement.
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