The California Promise Neighborhood Network believes that every child in California deserves a Promise Neighborhood. To improve the lives of children, from cradle-to-college and career, all elements of collective impact must be put into action. By having a common agenda, shared measurement systems, mutually reinforcing activities, continuous communication and a backbone organization, all children and their families will be able to live in communities of opportunity.
There were a group of California-based Promise Neighborhoods created by the U.S. Department of Education in late 2012. True results and impact have been shown, from increasing reading and math scores to bettering high school graduation and college-going rates.
In 2019, San Diego County approved a pilot Promise Neighborhood based on the success of its existing Chula Vista Promise Neighborhood.
This work must continue.
While great strides have been made, these are long-term, two-generational strategies that are redefining best practices in helping families and their children thrive. This is critical for Latino and immigrant communities. The tide can be turned if we all work together to better lives neighborhood by neighborhood, family by family and student by student.
These six Promise Neighborhood serve the the areas in California with concentrated need for families and students.
The Mission Promise Neighborhood serves a mostly immigrant Latino community that is facing a crisis due to gentrification that has caused one of the widest income gaps in the nation. There are 2,500 children ages 0−5 living in the Mission, 1,600 of whom are Latino, with 47 percent attending formal center-based care and 42 percent receiving care in a formal home-based setting. There is a 30 percent poverty rate for our families, with a 14 percent unemployment rate as compared to San Francisco’s 3.4 percent rate. Fifty percent do not have a high school diploma, leading to a challenge of creating a college-going culture not just in our schools, but in our homes. Strategies to combat these issues include partners offering culturally relevant services, with family success coaches, acting as connectors to these services, at each of the four schools we serve.
The primary focus of Hayward Promise Neighborhood is on low income and/or “opportunity” children, from before birth through college and career. Jackson Triangle (JT) children and youth are predominately low income (i.e., 85.5 percent are eligible for free/reduced lunch). Racially/ethnically, the JT is 55 percent Latino, 15 percent African American, 14 percent Asian, 10 percent Caucasian, 1 percent Pacific Islander and 5 percent other. Trauma is a significant concern among our children and their families. The results of the biennial California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS) indicate that 10 percent of HUSD seventh-graders feel unsafe in school and an additional 32 percent are ambivalent about safety at school. While many of these outcomes have improved during the past five years, moving the needle on population-level change is a long-term effort that will require at least a decade to fully bear fruit.
Chula Vista is situated in south San Diego County and approximately 15 miles from the U.S./Mexico border. The community is made of 6,744 residents within a 33 census block. Over 85 percent of the community identifies as Latino. On housing, 71 percent of the community rents their home. In terms of employment, 53 percent are employed full time. On education, 30 percent of the adult population have high school as the highest grade completed. Overall, these are family-based neighborhoods that, once given the knowledge and opportunity, can create community leaders and make college and career an expectation for children.
SDPromise supports the neighborhoods of Barrio Logan, Logan Heights and San Ysidro. The areas comprise about 13,000 family households. Family struggles do not remain isolated — a whole family is impacted as well as the community in which they live. By bringing together San Diego’s collaborative community partners to provide comprehensive wraparound supports, SDPromise will build a pipeline of services that are data-driven and results-based so children can grow up healthy, well-educated, and successful. Strong schools are at the heart of SDPromise but opportunities extend beyond the school walls. The comprehensive plan offers various services and programs focused on family, education, health, and community to support children and family for success now and beyond. Community driven planning will continue throughout the five-year initiative to ensure that the pipeline of solutions meets the evolving needs of the neighborhoods.
Corning is located in the northern part of California. The Corning-Paskenta Tribal Community is one of the neediest areas in the United States: Residents are overwhelmingly poor, with a current unemployment rate significantly higher than state and national rates, per capita income ($15,598) half of the California average, and an overall poverty level rate of 37.1 percent — almost double the California and national averages. Over half of the children (0-5) in the target community come from homes where English is a second language. Nearly 80 percent of students entering college in the county have to take remedial math and English classes.
The mouth of Klamath River and the seat of the Yurok Tribe is located 40 miles south of the Oregon border on the Yurok Reservation in Del Norte County. Home to the largest remaining stands of old-growth coastal redwood, Del Norte County is extremely rural, struggling to reinvent its economy amidst declining logging and fishing industries. Despite continued resilience of the local Tribes of the Yurok and Tolowa to maintain their land and traditions and to protect their natural resources, American Indian Students in Del Norte continue to lag academically, and Del Norte students as a whole lag well behind state averages. The Klamath River Promise Neighborhood initiative will use organizing tactics to strengthen bonds between its community, schools and family services and ensure more culturally responsive and effective interactions and its results-driven approach will create sustainable long-term systems change.
2301 Mission Street, Suite 303
San Francisco, CA 94110
(866) 379-7758
info@missionpromise.org
missionpromise.org
California State University East Bay
25800 Carlos Bee Boulevard
Hayward, CA 94542
(510) 885-4871
info@haywardpromise.org
haywardpromise.org
430 F Street
Chula Vista, CA 91910
(619) 420-3620
jose.mireles@csbcs.org
cvpromise.org
430 F Street
Chula Vista, CA 91910
(619) 420-3620
jose.mireles@csbcs.org
southbaycommunityservices.org/sdpromise
2655 Everett Freeman Way
Corning, CA 96021
(530) 528-3538
info@corningpromise.org
corningpromise.org
190 Klamath Blvd./P.O. Box 1027
Klamath, Ca 94458
(707) 951-6806
jonorris@yuroktribe.nsn.us