Our Work
The Center serves as a hub for integrated student support science and innovation. We connect the sciences of development, learning, implementation, and economics to discover pragmatic and effective ways to transform students’ lives for the better. Our core strategies include research, implementation, and innovation.
City Connects
City Connects is a systematic, high-impact, cost-effective approach to helping every child in a high-poverty school become ready to learn and engage in the classroom.
City Connects provides each student in a school with a tailored set of supports and enrichments designed to optimize healthy development and learning. City Connects provides a clear, organized, and evidence-based strategy for schools to more effectively and efficiently leverage existing resources and produce outcomes. City Connects uses data both to continuously improve service delivery, and to test out scientifically-based approaches to student support so that practitioners using various approaches can learn about what works, for whom, and why.
MyConnects
MyConnects is an online student support information system designed to support the City Connects practice. It offers Coordinators a way to manage individualized plans to provide every student with the right services at the right time. MyConnects enables City Connects Coordinators to collect and access information about community resources and also generate reports to share with school teachers, administrators and staff.
The Systemic Student Support (S3) Academy is a district learning network created by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, the Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy, and the Mary E. Walsh Center for Thriving Children. The S3 Academy is comprised of district and school teams from across Massachusetts that are working to transform their approaches to student support on behalf of the more than 85,000 students they serve.
Practice Briefs
Drawing on practical knowledge from the field, the Center has produced a series of practice briefs aimed at supporting the needs of practitioners as they implement systems of integrated student support in their schools.
The Whole Child: Building Systems of Integrated Student Support During & After Covid-19
Introducing Systems of Integrated Student Support
Financing Systems of Integrated Student Support
Defining a School Coordinator
Reviewing Every Student
Analyzing the Resource Landscape
Using Data to Inform Practice
Working With Community Partners
Selecting Technology for Integrated Student Support
For Researchers
The Center's research agenda aims to improve the nation’s understanding of effective approaches to student support by leveraging these advances in the sciences and using cutting edge methodologies capable of analyzing the impact of complex, comprehensive interventions.
For Policymakers
Leaders across the country are advancing integrated student support policy and practice.
Policy briefs, toolkits, and research summaries
Building Systems of Integrated Student Support: A Policy Brief for Federal Leaders
Building Systems of Integrated Student Support: A Policy Brief for Local and State Leaders
The Long-Term Impact of Systemic Student Support in Elementary School: Reducing High School Dropout
The Return on Investment of City Connects
The Impact of Integrated Student Support on Outcomes
Financing Systems of Integrated Student Support
Principles of Effective Practice for Integrated Student Support
Comprehensive Services for Children in Poverty: Setting the Agenda for Integrated Student Support
Tipping the Scales: How Integrating School and Community Resources Can Improve Student Outcomes and the Commonwealth's Future
Reducing High School Dropout Through Elementary School Student Support
Building a Statewide System to Support Early Childhood Program Integration With Comprehensive Services
The Impact of City Connects on Select Student Sub-Groups