The CAO Student Advisory Council is designed to amplify student voices, nurture leadership, and foster collaboration among students across PBSA schools. This Council provides a platform for students to share insights, advocate for their peers, and work collectively to shape a brighter future for their schools and community.

How it Works
The Council and I meet monthly along with other cluster leaders to discuss issues that matter most to students, provide input on PBSA policies and initiatives, and contribute actionable solutions to enhance their school environments. Through this opportunity, members of the council:

• Learn the importance of advocacy.
• Build essential leadership skills.
• Enhance their ability to take ownership of their educational journey.

The first official CAO Student Advisory Council meeting took place on January 9, 2025. During this meeting, Council members:

• Shared their passions and concerns about their individual schools and the broader cluster community.
• Offered innovative ideas and valuable perspectives on school culture, climate, and academic excellence.
• Engaged in a strategic planning session to identify challenges and develop actionable solutions. These efforts will culminate in a Project-
• Based Learning (PBL) initiative addressing the key concerns identified by the Council.
• Celebrated positive experiences and achievements within their schools, reinforcing the importance of recognizing successes alongside addressing challenges.

The Council also finalized its creed. The creed underscores the Council’s dedication to acting as a bridge between students and leadership, ensuring student voices remain central to PBSA’s decision-making processes.

This initiative amplifies student voices, ensuring leadership decisions reflect their needs. It highlights PBSA’s commitment to empowering students to advocate for themselves, their peers, and their communities.

“Horizons is special because we plan to meet the needs of the whole child,” says Tiffany Smith, site director for Horizons Atlanta at �ڹϳ����� Built Schools. “We help them grow academically, challenge themselves to learn new things, and experience the world around them in ways not possible during the school year. You get to see teachers and students at their best: filled with joy and excitement each day.”

This summer’s theme, “Horizons PBSA Takes Flight: Launching Full STEAM into Learning,” kicked off with an inspiring aviation event, including special visits from an actor portraying Bessie Coleman and real-life pilots from FedEx and American Airlines.

Engaging Daily Activities
A cornerstone of the program each year is the emphasis on daily reading and small group instruction, fostering literacy and personalized learning. Complementing this academic focus are daily enrichment classes, offering students the chance to explore various interests and develop new skills. Choices include culinary arts, cheer/dance, flag football, basketball, and African drumming, ensuring every child finds a passion to pursue.

The daily STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) classes provide hands-on learning experiences, promoting critical thinking and creativity. Additionally, a partnership with the YMCA enables all students to receive at least 45 minutes of swim instruction each week, ensuring physical activity and improving safety skills.

Exciting Field Trips and Unique Experiences
Weekly field trips add a layer of excitement and real-world learning to the program. This summer, students visited a variety of locations, including the World of Coke, Center for Civil & Human Rights, Urban Air, Billy Beez, Sparkle Fun Center, Regal Cinema, Southern Belle Farm, White Water, and the Alliance Theater. These excursions provided enriching experiences beyond the classroom, broadening students’ horizons.

Horizons also collaborates with the Boys & Girls Club for aftercare from 3-6 PM, ensuring a safe and engaging environment for students throughout the day.

Focused Middle School Programming
This year, Horizons enhanced the middle school programming to value students’ voices and needs. Students engage in Units of Study with embedded reading and math, choosing from options like Blooming Beauty (cosmetology), I Love Me!!! (self-love and empowerment), A Day in the Life of a Social Media Influencer (content creation and monetization), and Be Real, Be You! (authenticity and passion exploration).

Middle School Mondays are a highlight, featuring special treats like donuts and juice, a parfait bar, smoothies, and Chick-fil-A. Students also have the freedom to select their enrichment and STEAM classes, fostering autonomy and engagement.

Fun Fridays and Celebrations
Fun Fridays bring joy and friendships, with activities like an ice cream sundae party, water day, and a vibrant Juneteenth celebration. This year’s Juneteenth event included a BBQ, line dancing, card playing, painting the Juneteenth flag, and more, fostering a sense of community and cultural appreciation.

Showcasing Achievements
To wrap up an enriching summer this year, students showcased their hard work and creativity with performances of poems, dances, plays, and sports scrimmages in basketball and flag football. The event highlighted the transformative impact of this special program.

Exciting Moments at Horizons PBSA: Launching Full STEAM Ahead into Learning

This question exemplifies an important skill students at �ڹϳ����� are learning about– handling emotions in different ways. Since its inception, �ڹϳ����� Built Schools has been on a journey to explicitly teach and reinforce social emotional learning (SEL) competencies and skills.

At PBSA, we use the following definition to guide our SEL work:

Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) is the process through which children and adults develop the skills, attitudes, and values necessary to understand and manage life tasks such as cognitive learning, forming relationships, and the flexibility to adapt to challenges and expectations of complex society (Elias et al., 1997).

SEL programs typically incorporate evidence-based practices and activities that aim to cultivate five core competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making.

“We are on a mission to redefine Social Emotional Learning within our community. Historically, SEL has looked like a block of time at the beginning of the day where students receive direct instruction using a core SEL curriculum, like Second Step. While direct instruction is a critical part of our SEL implementation, the work is much bigger than a curriculum,” said Blake Zimmerman, PBSA Coordinator for Data and Culture. “Through a partnership with Urban Assembly’s Resilient Scholars Program, we have expanded our thinking about High Quality SEL. We believe it should include Direct Instruction, SEL Assessment, SEL Skill Integration, Adult SEL Development, and should be inclusive of partners, caregivers, students and staff.”

To bring this expanded vision and definition to life, PBSA hosted its 2nd Annual SEL Showcase at Price Middle School on April 17, 2024. The theme was “Moving from Intent to Impact: The Role of Student Voice and Academic Integration in SEL growth schoolwide.

“This is a way to hold ourselves accountable for our continued growth in SEL Implementation. It also provides us with an opportunity to elevate members of our community who are leading this work as students, as staff, as caregivers and as partners,” shared Zimmerman.

Attendees heard from students (K-12) sharing around their SEL skill development and how instructional practices are reinforcing SEL competencies that support student growth. Educators presented best practices, provided tangible tools that inform educator work and ensured that attendees can turnkey artifacts to their communities. PBSA caregivers modeled their own SEL skill development and talked about how they practice SEL skills at home with their students.

The event featured several �ڹϳ����� Built Schools teachers and students discussing the classroom integration of SEL. For example, Mrs. Denise Williams and Slater Elementary students, Zuri and Jason, shared more about how they leverage mindfulness as a self-management skill and use affirmations to promote optimistic thinking each day.

Affirmations for the young scholars included, “Today is going to be a good day in class.” And,“Every day is a fresh start and challenges help people.”

Zimmerman has been invited to speak on a panel at Urban Assembly’s SEL Symposium in NYC on May 17th where hundreds of educators and SEL thought-leaders will be gathered to explore and exchange innovation and best practices around social emotional learning implementation. He and a teacher from each school will be going to participate in the conference and will also get to attend two showcases at a NYC elementary and high school.

“We were encouraged and honored to receive this praise from our academic colleagues,” said Dr. Nikkita Warfield, Chief Academic Officer at �ڹϳ�����. “Our success underscores that the academic integration of an SEL curriculum is imperative to a successful student experience.”

Families receive boxes of locally grown food, including the fresh fruit and vegetables grown in the Thomasville Heights Elementary School farm.

The Slater Food Coop is the first school-based food coop in the Thomasville Heights community. The Grassroots Growers Alliance grows food specifically for the families of this coop.

As a cooperative, families contribute any way they can, whether that is by dividing food, packing boxes or more. It’s about working together cooperatively and providing for each other.

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Temporarily relocate 260+ low-income families in a coordinated manner so that their children can continue to attend their current neighborhood schools while a dilapidated housing development is rebuilt.

Forest Cove Apartments, the subsidized affordable housing development in the Thomasville Heights neighborhood of southeast Atlanta, must be rebuilt. Too many families are living in substandard housing, impacting their physical and emotional health. The developer and Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have decided to rebuild it all at once, requiring all residents to relocate. Current plans indicate that renovations will take an estimated 22 months to complete.

For many years, Forest Cove residents and tenant organizers have advocated for improved safety and better maintenance. Their leadership and voice were–and continue to be–essential to determine the future of this community.

“Together, we can minimize the disruption that relocation during renovation will bring,” says Greg Giornelli, president and CEO of �ڹϳ����� Built Schools.

A broad group of organizations, including the Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta, Enterprise Community Partners, The Millennia Companies, Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation, �ڹϳ�����, Atlanta Public Schools, and Open Doors, is leading the effort, with the active support of additional partners.

“The goal is to make sure students can continue attending the neighborhood schools serving Forest Cove apartments during the redevelopment and relocation process,” says Giornelli. “This will provide stability to families and ensure the academic, social and emotional gains of these students are not lost while the Forest Cove housing development is transformed into a safe and dignified place to live.”

Beyond keeping open neighborhood schools, this effort will also limit disruptions for Forest Cove families, meaning they will have a greater likelihood of maintaining their employment and holding on to a sense of community.

“Without this effort it is almost certain that Thomasville Heights Elementary School would be temporarily closed, and the enrollment at Price Middle School would be significantly impacted,” continues Giornelli.

The Thomasville Heights neighborhood includes the lowest-income census tract in Georgia, and the surrounding schools have been the focus of an innovative partnership between Atlanta Public Schools and �ڹϳ�����, a core element of APS’s larger turnaround initiative.

The club is serving as a distance-learning hub where students of all grade levels can come during the school day to do online classes. This full-day, five-days-per-week program provides a safe and supervised place for students to log in to their daily classroom instruction. There is no cost to participate, and the hub is providing a safe, positive, and engaging environment for students.

The Boys & Girls Club has a long-standing track record of providing youth with safe and enriching programming designed to enhance educational and social-emotional outcomes. On the heels of a successful beginning last fall, �ڹϳ����� Built Schools and Boys & Girls Club have further expanded their partnership with a new and innovative model where the Boys & Girls Club will run their after-school enrichment programs on-site at �ڹϳ����� Built Schools.

“This partnership was an innovative way to address both the widening achievement gaps, as well as the need for our parents to get back to work,” said Greg Giornelli, CEO, �ڹϳ����� Built Schools. “This is the first time the Boys and Girls Club of Metro Atlanta has held their program off-site, and this idea of adopting a club model and implementing it on site at a school, or in our case, throughout a network of schools, is an innovative approach to help best serve our students.”

The club will shift to provide after-school programming for students at Thomasville Heights and Slater elementary schools, once Atlanta Public Schools reopens school buildings. There are plans to open a site at Price Middle School next August.

At the tragic cost of many lives, 2020 shined a harsh spotlight on how systemic racism permeates America.

Our goal at �ڹϳ����� Built Schools is to create life-changing opportunities for students and families. We do that by explicitly identifying and dismantling the systems of racism that are barriers to those life-changing opportunities. That approach informs our long-term strategy and daily work.

The visible – and not so visible – systems of racism in our schools

In America, Black students are more likely to be suspended or expelled from school, but less likely to be enrolled in gifted enrichment programs.

Many schools serving predominantly Black students experience higher transiency rates, disrupting the long-term secure adult relationships at the heart of learning.

Many of us applaud schools that make a difference with low-income, minority students by concentrating solely on reading and math – all at the expense of the enrichment opportunities that middle and upper class families expect and demand in their schools.

The very curriculum taught to Black students reflects generations of systemic bias and racism. For example, one part of Georgia’s K-5 state standards requires knowledge of 70 historical figures – only 18 of whom are people of color.

Many believe that Black students in inner city schools must be silent and obedient in order to succeed, while schools in white communities give freedom, voice, and choice to students.

Schools serving low-income families can be unwelcoming and intimidating to caregivers, subtly discouraging parental involvement.

What is the cumulative impact of this systemic racism in our schools? On average, Black and Latino high school seniors perform math and read at the same level as 13-year-old white students. The high school graduation rate for Black Americans is lower than their white peers in every state. And in our four schools at �ڹϳ����� Built Schools, when we began our partnership with Atlanta Public Schools three of the schools were in the bottom 4 percent of all Georgia schools as ranked by student achievement.

We believe we can remove these systems of racism from schools. It’s already working at �ڹϳ����� Built Schools. We have seen significant, sometimes unexpected, gains across a multitude of important metrics.

In less than five years, across four schools that comprise the lowest income feeder pattern in Georgia and that serve a population that is 100 percent students of color, we have reduced suspensions by 40 percent, lowered transiency by one fifth, and increased caregiver attendance at parent-teacher conferences by 17 percent. It’s no accident that at the same time three of our four schools have increased student achievement by more than 93 percent of all schools in Georgia.

We know that we are at the beginning of a long journey, and even with our initial successes, we don’t expect sustainable change to happen overnight.

We also understand that we’re just four schools in a massive educational system built on systemic racism. But the important work of addressing these systems plays out daily in the way Black students and families experience the educational system through their neighborhood school. And we can start doing something about it right now.

We know our students are born with the same potential as any child. We just have to give them that chance.

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The south Atlanta community served by �ڹϳ����� Built Schools has experienced food apartheid, or food insecurity, for decades. A household is food insecure when they are unsure about where their next meal is coming from due to a lack of resources—money, a place to buy food or transportation to get there.

According to the USDA Food Access Research Atlas, a significant share of residents in south Atlanta is more than one mile from the nearest grocery store. Without access to reliable transportation, as more than 100 households in the area have no access to a vehicle, families experience difficulty bringing home quality groceries to feed their families.

“Atlanta has one of the largest populations of food insecure people in the country,” says Greg Giornelli, president of �ڹϳ�����. “According to research by Feeding America, one in 7.5 people, or an estimated 755,400 people, in metro Atlanta and north Georgia turn to food pantries and meal service programs to feed themselves and their families each year. This includes more than 164,000 children.”

Among those Atlantans experiencing food insecurity, 62 percent have had to choose between paying for food and paying for housing, and 73 percent have chosen between food and paying for medical care, according to Atlanta Community Food Bank, a PBSA partner.

“Students experiencing hunger can be less equipped to reach their full potential in school,” says Javan Wyche, School Engagement Manager at �ڹϳ�����, who helps run the food distribution programs. “This community hasn’t historically had access to the food resources it deserves, and many students have arrived to our schools hungry.”

Studies show that children from homes that lack consistent access to food are more likely to experience developmental impairments in areas like language, motor skills, and behavior.

�ڹϳ����� Built Schools is partnering with several organizations to improve food security in South Atlanta, ensuring that students arrive to class with bellies full and minds ready to learn.

Each week, COR hosts The (COR)ner Store, a free market at Thomasville Heights Elementary School or Carver STEAM Academy, offering families groceries, clothing and hygiene supplies free of charge.

When schools closed for in-person learning in March, causing hundreds of families to suddenly lose access to meals, COR helped �ڹϳ����� Built Schools distribute more than 3,000 pounds of food in nearby neighborhoods.

“Like �ڹϳ����� Built Schools, we believe that a community is only as strong as its youth,” says Jennifer Henn, executive director of COR. “We partnered with �ڹϳ����� Built Schools to make sure that students in the Carver cluster have their basic needs met–including support, tools and food–so they can flourish and thrive in school, and beyond. Since we started our weekly drive-through food distribution in March, we have distributed about 250,000 pounds of food to our community.”

Another partner, Urban Recipe, works with its members and supporters in creating food security, building community, and providing a platform for personal development while affirming dignity. �ڹϳ����� Built Schools families had the opportunity to become a member of a food co-op that meets every two weeks and helped unload, sort, organize and distribute an average of 3,000 pounds of food to families in the community.

“We are helping create food security in south Atlanta, but we’re also providing a place where relationships and community are built,” says Jeremy Lewis, Urban Recipe. “The dignity of everyone involved is affirmed and, together, we’re meeting a critical community need.”

CARE, an international humanitarian nonprofit with headquarters in Atlanta, organized a coalition to deliver CARE Packages–boxes full of food and supplies–to help area families impacted by COVID-19.

“Families have enough to worry about with the pandemic and tough economic times,” says Ryan Shepard, Executive Director of the CARE Global Innovation Hub. “They should know where their next meal is coming from. This is just one of CARE’s initiatives to help address the impacts of poverty and the broader global food crisis. With the pandemic it was clear that many families are in desperate need of help to put food on their tables. And there are community members who are willing to stand in the gap to fill these needs.”

Access to quality food is also an issue. According to the ACFB, families experiencing food insecurity can save money by choosing cheaper options that lack nutritional value. Eighty-six percent of households who have benefited from the ACFB report purchasing inexpensive, unhealthy food because they could not afford healthier options.

Thomasville Heights Elementary School (THES) and The Paideia School are addressing food insecurity and poor food quality through urban farming.

Paideia supports the THES Farm through mentorship and a partnership that involves the sharing of knowledge, seeds, tools, materials and volunteers that enables the two schools to continue to learn and grow together and feed their communities. Combined, the farms grow approximately 5,000 lbs of high quality produce each year. Next year, they are positioned to produce even more as Paideia relocates its urban farm to a larger plot of land in south Atlanta. The new farm will be closer to THES, which will allow the alliance to better support each other.

“This program is about building bridges,” says Tania Herbert, Urban Agriculture Coordinator at The Paideia School. “It’s so encouraging that communities can come together and grow so much food with the understanding that we all benefit from it. This is a great example of a place-based agricultural model- a grassroots effort to grow and feed our families.”

At age 22, I was handed my birth certificate, social security card and passport and told I had 10 days to leave my home.

My nightmare was coming true. My Haitian parents had finally discovered my secret:

I am gay.

I was no longer welcome. I was being discarded. I tried to be perfect but “perfectionism” was not enough.

When the day came, my mom berated me as I made my exit. My dad had no words for me. My heart was broken. My legs buckled as I walked out of the threshold of my childhood home.

Who was I?

I came face to face with who I was during the next two years. I discovered that I am resilient.

My story is important because I represent so many of our LGBTQ students: discarded by loved ones, lacking security and scared of what the future holds.

LGBTQ students deserve to pursue education in an environment where they are loved, accepted and supported. They deserve the same access to opportunities as their peers.

Homophobia runs rampant in schools across America–including our schools. Not only from our students, but from some faculty and staff, as well. We must do better. We owe it to our LGBTQ students.

If it’s in the world then it is in our schools.

Every educator has a student like me in their classroom. They may seem shy or eccentric or eager to please, but that’s because they just want to know their life matters. They need you to help them know that.

Here are steps you can take to promote equity for LGBTQ students:

• Language matters. If you hear a student or colleague using inappropriate language that can harm the LGBTQ community, speak up and correct them.
• ALL Black lives matter. Even the LGBTQ ones. If you are marching for George Floyd, march also for the Black trans women who have been murdered. The LGBTQ community needs justice, too.
• Model being inclusive. It should be reflected in the information you present to your class – videos, books, etc.

We aren’t free until we are all free.

What are you doing to elevate the voices of LGBTQ students? Please join me in making our schools safer for all students and ensuring that we value the experiences of people in our buildings.

“Families have enough to worry about with the pandemic and tough economic times,” says Ryan Shepard, Executive Director of the CARE Global Innovation Hub. “They should know where their next meal is coming from. This is just one of CARE’s initiatives to help address the global food crisis. With the pandemic it was clear that many families are in desperate need of help to put food on their tables.”

On top of providing meals, CARE and partners will help provide jobs for educators and social service workers who may live on partial year salaries or depend on working summer programs to supplement their income. These professionals will staff the delivery, packaging, and distribution centers alongside partners from gig platforms like TaskRabbit, Lyft, and Uber.
“We are excited to collaborate with a team of professionals who are eager to serve their community, while earning much needed supplemental income,” Shepard said.

This effort will include more than 35 paid summer jobs for educators and social workers. The goal is to expand the program in future to other cities including Houston, Louisville, and Chicago.

For media inquiries please contact:

• CARE – Rachel Kent, Senior Press Officer, rachel.kent@care.org
• Atlanta Public Schools- Rachel Sprecher, rsprecher@atlanta.k12.ga.us
• Seth Coleman, Media Relations Manager, Seth.Coleman@atlanta.k12.ga.us
• CHRIS 180- Chaundra Luckett, Chief Marketing Officer, chaundra.luckett@chris180.org
• Concrete Jungle- Katherine Kennedy, Director, katherine@concrete-jungle.org
• �ڹϳ����� Built Schools- Cara Frattasi, Communications Director, cfrattasi@purposebuiltschools.org
• YMCA- Erica Faulkner, Executive Director of Communications, EricaF@ymcaatlanta.org