Investing in the future: Providing pathways to success for Birmingham’s children
Before becoming Birmingham’s mayor, I was honored to serve on the city’s school board. As the child of a teacher, I see education as a personal passion, and my time on the school board just added more fuel to the fire.
This is one reason my administration invests a significant amount of time, energy and resources in strategies to make sure the children in Birmingham City Schools have a chance to fulfill their potential and their dreams. We want — and need — our students to succeed.
With the Birmingham City Council’s strong support, we are making significant investments in programs to support our educators and our students: programs that provide college and career opportunities, mental health services, financial literacy training, and conflict resolution skills, as well as programs that promote better reading and school attendance.
Over the past seven years, our city has committed at least $30 million to these programs. Our investments have grown over time, and they’ve become more targeted to meet specific needs of the students in our city.
We’re not doing this because schools are our responsibility, at least in a technical sense.
Birmingham’s school system is run by an independent superintendent and an independently elected board. As mayor, I don’t even play an ex officio role in managing Birmingham City Schools. But I am 100% committed to doing all I can to ensure our children have what they need to thrive.
A vested interest in students’ success
The school system’s success is closely linked to the success of our city. Schools make a huge difference in whether young families move to Birmingham and stay in Birmingham. They influence whether we attract and keep businesses. They are the foundation of strong communities, affecting the health and well-being of our residents and ultimately shaping what will become of our city.
We have a vested interest in schools in the same way that you have a vested interest in your heartbeat.
But more than that, we have an obligation to the students who sit in these classrooms. We want to give them their best chances to be successful adults. We want to expand their vision about what they can be and open up clear paths for their future.
Some of my interest traces back to my time as a school board member, when I regularly engaged students in conversations about their plans after high school. Many times, I heard about dreams that were on track to come true. But too often, I heard from students who didn’t have a vision for life after graduation, much less a plan to achieve it.
This is not what my team nor the City Council wants for our young people. It’s why we have launched innovative efforts and partnerships to expand opportunities for students and to clear obstacles from their path.
A Promise for the future
Birmingham Promise is perhaps the most visible of the city’s investments aimed at educating and equipping our young people for future success. The program offers tuition assistance for all graduates of Birmingham City Schools who attend public colleges in Alabama, and it provides paid internships for our high school seniors so they can get job experience and explore possible careers.
The City of Birmingham first launched the program as a pilot in 2019. By 2020, Birmingham Promise was an independent 501c3, and to date, it has provided internships for more than 200 students and tuition assistance for more than 1,000 graduates. It also provides coaching assistance to help students succeed at college and on the job.
By helping students get the education and skills to succeed, it is changing lives in a wide variety of ways.
Consider this story:
As he approached graduation from Parker High School in 2021, LaDarius Smaw had not planned for what would come next. But he heard about Birmingham Promise at school, and while he’d never imagined himself in college, he decided to apply. As a result, he got connected with Lawson State Community College, and he earned a welding certificate. Now, he’s also an apprentice plumber/pipefitter in Local Union 91.
Birmingham Promise provided the means for LaDarius to succeed, but just as importantly, it provided him the motivation to try.
“Back when I was in high school, I never thought I’d be able to do what I do now,” Smaw told Birmingham Promise last year. “I tell people if the opportunity is there, always take it. The sky’s the limit. The possibilities are here, you’ve just got to go get them.”
Historic investments in our children
Stories like this are the reason the City of Birmingham committed $2 million a year for five years to support Birmingham Promise. Likewise, we have made historic investments over multiple years to dismantle some of the other barriers our students face and make sure they can maximize the opportunities before them.
While this is not an exhaustive list, some of the initiatives include:
· $1 million a year for three years for mental health support for our students, ensuring that each school has counselors and crisis response teams and that all faculty and staff are trained to prevent and de-escalate behavioral health crises.
· $1 million a year for two years for a K-12 financial literacy program so that our students are in a position to become financially secure by understanding investments, saving and debt.
· $1 million for a program that works with families with infants and small children to make sure they are ready for preschool and kindergarten.
· $1 million a year for two years for a school-based conflict resolution program — part of a larger city violence initiative — that is not only helping to reduce fights, suspensions and disciplinary actions on our campuses but is also improving attendance.
· $1 million a year for two years for a Safe Haven program to bring children when they are out of school into city recreation centers for tutoring, life skills training and wholesome fun.
Involving the broader community
The city is also investing significant staff time and using its bully pulpit to build awareness and community support to tackle some of the larger issues affecting our schools: early learners who are struggling to read and learners of all ages who are absent too many days.
To help on the reading front, our city Department of Youth Services partnered with Birmingham City Schools to launch Page Pals, a program that enlists volunteers to go into our schools to read with our students and tutor those who need extra help.
By assisting children with their reading now, we are setting them up for success later.
We know that students who aren’t reading at grade level by the time they finish 3rd grade are on a track to fall further and further behind in history, science and other subjects. Indeed, they are on a track that is more likely to end with dropping out of school, being unemployed and even going to prison. Our administration uses Page Pals to educate parents about the importance of reading to their children and to engage the broader community in our efforts to raise literacy skills in our schools.
To address the high rate of school absences, the city partnered with our school system and our local public housing authority to create Every Day Counts, a campaign that is designed to reduce truancy by raising awareness and incentivizing attendance. Thanks to community donations, parents in public housing whose children don’t have absences are entered into a drawing for financial rewards that can go toward household expenses.
It had an immediate impact.
When the campaign was launched, only two families in public housing qualified for the drawing. The second month, 135 students in public housing had perfect attendance, and nine families each received $300 to go toward their monthly housing costs.
Investing for the long haul
As gratifying as it is to see these results, our goal goes far beyond scoring quick wins for show. Our goal is to create a broader culture that primes our children for the future by giving them access to the right information, the right opportunities and the right mindset to succeed. From preparations for preschool to money for college, our children deserve to have the tools that will help them get where they want to go.
We’re approaching these efforts like our financial literacy program tells students to invest their money: We’ve done our homework, we know our goals, and we’ve put together a diversified, strategic portfolio that we are prepared to sustain over time.
We’re investing for the long haul for the sake of our children — and for the future of Birmingham.
