Two District 742 Schools Set to Become Services Hub for Surrounding Community

(KNSI) – District 742 will hold a pair of events Tuesday afternoon to debut Discovery Elementary and North Junior High as full-service community schools.

The program exists thanks to a federal grant lasting five years. Director of Partnerships for Student Success Sang Maxwell talks about the research that went into creating the model.

“We’ve conducted needs assessments at both North and Discovery of the families and of the staff. And a really beautiful thing about this is when you look at them side-by-side, they align really, really well. So, what that says is our staff is acutely aware of the needs of our families.”

The program turns the schools into a hub for necessary services like mental health counseling, bringing in over a dozen partners to help. Maxwell says it isn’t a new concept but it is more comprehensive than what is done throughout the rest of the district.

“Some of our other schools run these models, right? They just don’t have a grant backing their services. What we are really fortunate, is we had about 17 partners sign on with us at the initial onset of the grant to help us with these services.”

Both schools are hosting an open house today, which will last two hours. Discovery’s starts at 3:30, and North’s begins at 4:00.

Maxwell says the program is designed to survive even if the grant is not renewed and it is replicable at other schools in District 742 if that becomes financially viable in the future.

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