CORE | Coalition for Residential Education

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Celebrating Alternative Education Settings Serving At-Risk Youth

Washington, DC – Approximately 40 boarding schools and children’s homes for over 10,000 socially and economically disadvantaged youth across the United States will celebrate next Wednesday the second-ever National Residential Education Day. The celebration is part of a national effort to increase public awareness of “residential education” as a crucial option for at-risk youth.

Residential education programs are community-like settings where children severely challenged by homelessness, abuse, neglect, the child welfare system, and low-income, high-crime neighborhoods live and learn together, outside of their homes, within stable, supportive environments. The majority of children live on a campus, in single-family homes with a married couple and seven to ten other boys or girls. Other children, mostly in urban areas, live in boarding school-style dormitories with trained adult mentors. In 2009, 79% of CORE-member residential education program graduates went on to attend two- and four-year colleges.

With an average length of stay of two years and funded privately or through a public-private partnership, residential education is a growing trend that transforms the lives of children on the margins.

Positioned within National Foster Care Month, National Residential Education Day seeks to increase recognition and understanding of the approximately 150 programs across the country that provide at-risk youth chances to live safe, productive, and meaningful lives. September 2006 federal foster care legislation was passed adding residential education as a valid placement option for children in the child welfare system, and as a viable alternative to traditional foster care homes.

“Kids need physical and emotional safety, and they need a quality education. They need the feeling of belonging to a nurturing community, a belief in self, and a structure to grow in,” says Heidi Goldsmith, executive director of Washington, DC-based CORE: the Coalition for Residential Education, the organization spearheading National Residential Education Day. “Ideally, that structure is a good family. But if that is not possible, kids need not what looks like a family, but what behaves like a healthy family.”

Programs in Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Texas, Oklahoma and beyond are hosting open house events and on-campus parades and celebrations, instituting Advocacy Days to bring youth and alumni to speak with state policymakers, implementing letter-writing campaigns to state legislators, planning lecture series that further educate participants about residential education, reaching out to local media, and making “A Day in the Life of…” films to spread awareness of this valuable education alternative. Additionally, Florida Governor Crist has proclaimed May 6 as Florida Residential Education Day.

Crossnore School alumnus Michael Jones says, “I would not be where I am today without the help and influence of the caring staff, teachers, and houseparents at Crossnore. What is so amazing is that for any other person, there are roadblocks to the things I have done and want to do. For me, these roadblocks just kind of disappeared and I am free to go where I want to go. Crossnore gave me these opportunities.” Enrolling in Crossnore School in 2004 after his family faced financial crisis and his once stable home unraveled, Michael graduated from Crossnore School in 2007 and, after working on the presidential campaign, is now a freshman at New York University.

For more information on residential education and specific events occurring around the country, contact Maya Aguilar at CORE: the Coalition for Residential Education.

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