As children get back to school this month, the All Our Children National Network is calling on churches to support them and their families by partnering with a nearby public school.
The network champions quality public education for all, and says that church-school partnerships are a means toward helping to close the educational achievement gaps that occur between economically disadvantaged students--usually in underresourced schools--and their more advantaged peers.
All Our Children's founding director, Lallie Lloyd, calls this an urgent moral crisis. "Children are
Courtesy Photo
St. Stephen's Church, Boston partners with the nearby Blackstone School and runs its library.
not reaching their God-given potential," she said in a news release about the network's efforts. "The church brings unique resources of vision, relationships and passion that are urgently needed to address this problem. The church needs to be involved--locally, regionally and nationally," Lloyd said.
The Episcopal Church's General Convention this summer encouraged the network's efforts with a resolution endorsing community partnerships between churches and public schools and calling on All Our Children to convene a national symposium in 2017 to address the church's role in advocating education equity.
The network is planning six regional forums next year to lay the foundation for that event. The first of those forums, co-sponsored by the New England dioceses that make up Province I of the Episcopal Church, will be held Feb. 19-20, 2016, at the Diocese of Massachusetts' Barbara C. Harris Camp and Conference Center in Greenfield, N.H.
"By collectively committing to supporting and advocating for high-quality education for every child, regardless of race, creed, income or zip code, we tie our church's mission to a very real, very current need, and we invite anyone and everyone to join us at one of our forums in 2016," Lloyd said in the news release.
Several Episcopal churches in the Diocese of Massachusetts have already established All Our Children member partnerships with their local public schools, including St. Stephen's Church and Trinity Church in Boston, Grace Church and St. Andrew's Church in New Bedford, Grace Church in Salem, St. Stephen's Church in Lynn and St. Stephen's Church in Cohasset.
For more information about All Our Children, visit www.allourchildren.org.
--Tracy J. Sukraw