Imagine your family is facing the obstacles of homelessness, living in a shelter, looking for housing and employment while taking care of your children. Imagine how difficult it would be to ensure your kids are getting the educational and benefits assistance they need to thrive in school and beyond while you search for a living-wage job and affordable housing. Unfortunately, this is the reality for too many NYC families—including over 39,000 children.

New Visions is about to make these daunting tasks much easier for these families, thanks to the new Family Portal, soon to be launched in partnership with a broad-based collaboration among The Mayor’s Office, NYC Public Schools, the Department of Homeless Services, the Department of Social Services, the Administration for Children’s Services, and a range of community nonprofits through the groundbreaking Every Child and Family is Known program. Through a user-friendly interface, families can directly voice their needs and request services. A designated caring adult at their children’s school follows up on their requests and checks in with them weekly. In the Family Portal, families can view information about their child, learn about and request educational and other services and opportunities, and get help obtaining access to life-changing benefits.

In June, the Every Child and Family is Known partners hosted a fun and joyful Family Portal Pre-Launch event and Resource Fair at P.S. 5 Port Morris. 300 families attended and had the opportunity to sign up with service providers from a variety of community-based organizations, city agencies, and New Visions while their kids enjoyed carnival games, activities, and food. We thank everyone who joined us in the celebration! 

 

Congratulations to our Scholarship Awardees!

This time of year is filled with celebrations of amazing young people from across our network of 80 high schools. Among these is the New Visions for Public Schools Scholarship reception. In June we had the honor of celebrating ten exceptional high school graduates who will each receive $20,000 to support their aspirations. Congrats to our winners!

But there’s more! Thanks to the generosity of an anonymous donor, New Visions awards the Opportunity Scholarship to Black and Latino male students. Two students from each of our network schools are awarded either a $10K multi-year or a $2K one-time grant to support their postsecondary transition to college or an accredited career training program. To date, we have provided $1.9M in assistance to 321 students. This year, 134 students were awarded $437,250 and celebrated at another inspiring summer event.

 

Celebrating New Visions’ Innovative Technology, Its Users and Impact

New Visions’ innovative application—The Portal by New Visions—helps educators ensure equitable outcomes for all students, getting them the individualized support they need, providing them with academic and career-learning opportunities they might otherwise have missed, and ultimately keeping them on track for graduation and future success.

This summer we hosted our first “Portal Palooza”—an event celebrating The Portal and the educators using it in countless ways to work smarter and more effectively to change outcomes for their students, from addressing chronic absenteeism to tracking high impact tutoring and more.

We learned from presenters from schools, district offices, and partner organizations how educators and district leaders have been using The Portal in creative ways.