We have worked with more than five hundred public and independent schools across the U.S.—elementary through high school—and more than two hundred school districts, large and small, urban and rural.
Two recent examples of this work include New York City Schools – Service in Schools program and the Cherokee Nation Education Services in Oklahoma.
Our work with Service in Schools – a program of the New York City Schools began with the question: How do we elevate the conversation around service learning and sustain understanding and best practices in the largest school district in the US? In partnership with the Service in Schools team, Cathryn Berger Kaye designed a workshop series and multi-level approach of participation for eager teachers throughout the city. Educators learned the purpose and process of service learning over several full day sessions, leading to curriculum planning to amplify youth voice and efficacy. Maureen Connolly developed a one week high school leadership program to prepare students as guides for younger children in a “What is service learning?” experience that included hands’ on participation with local nonprofit organizations.
From 1995-2019, our consulting with the Cherokee Nation centered on supporting schools K-12 in northeast Oklahoma and southern Kansas with professional development and resources to advance service learning. The focus was most often on cultural and historical preservation, environmental sustainability, and literacy. This led to the adoption of our Strategies for Success with Literacy: A Learning Curriculum that Serves as a summer program for seven years, with middle school students strengthening transferable skills and designing creative service learning opportunities to benefit their community. In her book Going Blue, Cathryn Kaye writes about the amazing work done by Cherokee youth to restore the polluted Superfund site Tar Creek in Miami, Oklahoma.