Convening Partners
As a backbone organization for education in our community, Evolve502 convenes and organizes partner organizations and agencies (government, education, social service, business, and foundation) to identify and address gaps along the cradle-to-career pathway to student achievement.
We work in collaboration with Jefferson County Public Schools and bring community solutions to better link students and families to resources, ensuring they have the tools they need from cradle to career.
Through our collaborative efforts, we are creating more touchpoints and more hours of learning and engagement for students and families.
Examples of our Work
Evolve502 is committed to using innovation and collaboration to increase education opportunities for our youth. At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, we began convening partners to collaborate on projects that would best serve students. That effort has now turned into year-round education opportunities for our community’s students.
NTI Community Learning Hubs
As the Covid-19 pandemic brought the closure of schools in 2020, community centers and other community organizations knew that many students would need additional support to be successful with Non-Traditional Instruction (NTI). They knew that students could benefit from opportunities for in-person supports and socialization as they navigated both a pandemic and online learning.
Evolve502 identified out-of-school time providers, churches and other community organizations that were willing to host community learning hubs during NTI. Based on needs expressed by these community partners, Evolve502 was able to broker and leverage JCPS and other community resources to support technology, internet connectivity, healthy meals, academic assistance and sufficient cleaning and personal protective equipment supplies to ensure safety. More than 2,500 students were served through Community Learning Hubs during the 2020-2021 school year.
Expanded Summer Learning
Summer is a great time to engage students in enrichment and learning opportunities. According to the Wallace Foundation, “During the summer, low-income students lose ground compared to their wealthier peers. But summer can also be a time to help level the playing field through high-quality, summer learning programs that research shows produce measurable benefits in math, reading, and social and emotional learning.” View the Wallace Summer Learning Toolkit.
Since the pandemic began, summer has been a critical learning time to keep students engaged, elevating learning while allowing students to explore new talents. With input from community partners and lessons learned from the Community Learning Hub effort, Evolve502, JCPS and partners developed a robust summer learning experience, reaching more than 5,000 students in 2021 and 10,000 students in 2022 community and school-based sites across Louisville. Teachers, college student staff, mental health supports, enrichment programs, and other learning experiences were deployed throughout the community.
Community Learning Hub Tutoring Initiative
According to state testing scores, only 31.9 percent of JCPS elementary school students are proficient or distinguished in reading. Evolve502, JCPS and partners are now focusing on creating out-of-school time opportunities to assist in reading improvement.
The Community Learning Hub Tutoring Initiative capitalizes on the untapped out-of-school time hours that students are still in structured environments, such as after school programs, to focus on improving reading skills. In the first iteration of the program, Evolve502 partnered with 30 Community Learning Hubs to serve more than 500 students. Additionally, Evolve502 hired 45 local college students who were then trained by I Would Rather Be Reading in their Trauma Informed Reading Mentors curriculum., a comprehensive literacy intervention program. These tutors work with students in 20–30-minute small tutoring groups with a 1:3 tutor to student ratio, with at least two sessions per week from September to May. Hundreds of students are expected to participate in the 2022-23 school year.
Join Our Effort
Evolve502 will continue to coordinate connection points between these providers and JCPS to ensure more intentional collaboration and support for the benefit. If you or your organization are interested in joining or supporting our initiatives, please email Dr. Charles Davis at charlesd@evolve502.org.