The Connected Community Schools Hub opened in late March, and is located in Room 121 adjacent to the cafeteria.
MADISON, NY - The Madison Central School District is pleased to announce that it has joined the Connected Community Schools family as a partner district beginning with the remainder of the 2021-22 school year. That announcement will be commemorated with a ceremonial ribbon cutting on Thursday, April 21st at Madison Central School. The ceremony will be held at 2 p.m.
The District, along with the Connected Community Schools team, would like to invite the Madison Central School community to celebrate the beginning of this partnership. This includes members of our local media, along with dignitaries from Madison, Madison County, and New York State.
Simply put, the mission of Connected Community Schools is to ensure that the basic needs of students and families are met. When these needs are met, students and their families can succeed and thrive both inside and outside of the school setting.
With the help of an on-site staff member assigned to the district, Connected Community Schools will help to coordinate, streamline, and deliver needed services to students and families so that they have the best possible opportunity to succeed. Supports exist in areas such as housing, food insecurity and medical, dental and mental health support.
Services can be accessed on-site at Madison Central School through the newly-established Connected Community Schools Hub. In addition to providing a starting point for support services, the Hub can provide students and families with no-cost essentials such as food items, hygiene needs and school supplies. They are available to any student or family with need. These essential items can make the difference for a student to be ready to learn, participate, and realize the maximum potential of their educational opportunities.
The initiative also provides embedded in-building programming, where community experts are invited to educate and organize engagement opportunities for students and families.
Connected Community Schools provides access to these opportunities through the power of the Central New York communities it serves. The Rome, NY-based organization combines the efforts of over 200 businesses and community-based agencies in pursuit of finding solutions to wide-ranging challenges facing students, their families and the school community.
As community support has grown, the number of school districts partnering with Connected Community Schools has grown in lockstep with that support. From their beginnings in the Rome City School District, the initiative has expanded its reach to serving 13 school districts, 53 school buildings and over 20,000 students across the region.
Connected Community Schools has also been a vital community resource for children and families throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. At the outset of the pandemic, the school-based Hubs pivoted to consolidate efforts into the organization's Central Hub. In doing so, Connected Community Schools inadvertently became the largest food pantry in Oneida County. They assisted 56,000 unduplicated individuals and their families across Central New York in meeting nutritional needs during school closures and other challenges.
Madison Superintendent of Schools Jason A. Mitchell says the new partnership will open doors of opportunity for the school community to thrive.
“The MCS school community is so excited to partner with Connected Community Schools,” Mitchell said. “Their well-documented success in mobilizing community resources in neighboring districts to help students and families is impressive. We are particularly excited about the prospect of becoming a Connected School to help address the most basic needs for some of our students and their families. Ultimately, we are hopeful that this will allow our students to focus their energy on thriving academically and socially at MCS.”
Connected Community Schools Executive Directors Danielle Martin and Melissa Roys expressed that their team is excited to become part of the Madison Central School family, and create a Connected School that supports students, families, faculty, staff and the community.