Children at Ingram-Pye and Hartley elementary schools, Ballard Hudson Middle School, and Southwest High School will be getting special attention from a group of community leaders who are planning the Macon Children's Promise Neighborhood Project
MCPN is the only such project in the Southeast, that received a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education. In-kind donations bring the total to more than $800,000 to create a 5-year plan that prepares students in the the two neighborhoods for college or a career.
Bibb Schools Superintendent Romain Dallemand said the 5-year strategic plan he will launch February 10 will do the same for the whole district.
Peter Brown, co-director of MCPN, said the two plans will go hand in hand.
"We would not be where we are today if Superintendent Dallemand had not seen this fit very closely with his aims, one of which is to engage the community in supporting the school system," said Brown.
Brown says the focus of the promise neighborhood project will be initiatives outside the school like summer and after school programs, technology at home, and job training programs for parents.
Suzanne Griffin-Ziebart, Bibb Schools deputy superintendent of school improvement and redesign, said the project will support the district-wide strategic plan, and vice-versa.
"I would expect," she said, "just by the very nature of a collaborative effort that the strategic plan will be strengthened by the promise neighborhoods projects and the promise neighborhood's work will be strengthened by the strategic plan. I just see it as a win win."
Right now, the project is just in the Tindall Heights and Unionville neighborhoods, but Brown said if the project goes well, that won't be the case forever.
"If we prove we can do it, resources will become available to us, and we can do it elsewhere. We can do it in Bloomfield, we can do it in East Macon, we can do it in Pleasant Hill."
Next fall, Brown said they will apply for a grant of up to 30 million dollars to implement the plan.