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New plan: Help families near Paterson's Eastside High with meals, health, academic support
By
Nancy Solomon
Published Feb 2, 2023
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By
Nancy Solomon
Published Feb 2, 2023
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Montclair State University is teaming up with school and city officials in Paterson, New Jersey to integrate academic and community support in the low-income neighborhood around Eastside High School.
The university will use a $1 million grant from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, to be administered over two years, for the One Square Mile initiative — placing the high school at the center of an infusion of community services.
Montclair State University President Jonathan Koppell said the program is a different approach to improving school performance than has often been taken in the past.
“We say, ‘Well, you know, the reading scores aren't what we hoped they would be. So let's do a reading program,’” Koppell said. “But we know that the youngsters who we're trying to help also have issues around health and food and safety, and their parents are not employed in jobs that allow them to be home.”
The initiative at Eastside will offer free meals, mental and physical health services and academic support interventions, according to an announcement from the school system.
“And we actually try to pull it all together and show that multidimensional problems can only be addressed with multidimensional solutions,” Koppel said.
In an announcement about the initiative, Superintendent of Schools Eileen F. Shafer said it would make Eastside the 11th “full community school where services are made available to families” in the district. Koppell developed the specific model for One Square Mile in his previous role as dean of the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions at Arizona State University, where he partnered with the Phoenix-area community of Maryvale.
“When students succeed, the whole community succeeds,” Shafer said in the announcement. “This not only makes these services conveniently available to students and families, but it also helps ensure our students’ success in school.”
Several local organizations in Paterson are involved, such as Tier 1 Recovery, which provides drug counseling and other mental health services.
Montclair State University is only four miles from Eastside High School — made famous in the 1980s for then-Principal Joe Clark’s crackdown on violence and drugs as depicted in the movie “Lean on Me.” But in many ways it is a world away. The campus sits atop a hill with stately buildings in an affluent suburb. Paterson is a majority Black and brown city where the per capita annual income is $21,064 and a quarter of the population lives in poverty, according to the latest U.S. Census.
The university has already been working in Paterson following a $5 million donation from Montclair alumnus and Paterson native Chuck Muth. The donation is funding a museum and learning center at Hinchliffe Stadium, which was once home to a Negro League baseball team.
Koppell said it’s part of an increasing focus on building ties between the university and the city.
“They should be seen as a reflection of a university that says, ‘We can't be successful if we're not partnering in a city like Paterson that's just, you know, a stone's throw from our campus,’” he said.
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Nancy Solomon
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