Ohio State’s P-12 Project is committed to revitalizing area neighborhoods and schools by working with educators, parents and community members.

The P-12 Project was created out of the OSU Academic Plan in 2000. The main goal of the project is to assist in the improvement of Ohio’s schools, specifically schools that serve children from lower socio-economic families. This statewide group initiative also services communities and neighborhoods.

The P-12 Project consists of three components that are designed to implement the improvement of schools and neighborhoods. The components are Research and Policy Briefing, Teacher Professional Development and the Learning Bridge.

“The University District Education Committee developed the Learning Bridge in September 2001,” said Danielle Polemeni, director of the Learning Bridge.

The Learning Bridge is a project that aims to assist in the development of the Learning Bridge neighborhoods as learning communities. All 13 Columbus Public Schools in the University District are a part of the Learning Bridge neighborhood.

“We are focusing on these 13 schools because they are all in the University District, which is determined by what Columbus Public calls their catchment area and attendance zone,” Polemeni said. “OSU would also like to provide services close to home and be a good neighbor by offering professional skills that would benefit the community.”

The Learning Bridge has a long-term goal of focusing on all the schools in the Columbus Public district.

“Because Columbus Public is such a large district and since the Learning Bridge program is so new, we chose the schools’ whose attendance zone matched the boundary of the University District,” Polemeni said. “We can take these models to other places in the city and other cities in the state.”

Although the Learning Bridge is a new component of the P-12 Project, committee members hope that there will be improvement of school-aged children’s academic performance, and stronger support from families.

The Learning Bridge is divided into four sub-committees, which are Academic Assistance, After-School and Summer Youth Development, Human Services, the Service-Learning Initiative.

The Learning Bridge is working on a new initiative called Jump Start.

Jump Start is a national organization that gets funding through Americorp at federal work-study. OSU will hire a coordinator who works for Jump Start. Jump Start will hire 40 work-study students to work one-on-one with pre-school children in the schools.

“We will reach out to area pre-schools in March and April to discuss future partnerships,” Polemeni said.

The Literacy Field Experience is also a program that is being piloted by the Learning Bridge.

All pre-service teachers that are in the College of Human Ecology or the College of Education at OSU must complete two required reading foundation courses. The professors who teach these classes are interested in making them service learning courses that would require students to complete a field experience.

“OSU students from one section of one course offered this coming spring will work four hours per week with elementary-aged children,” Polemeni said. “Then we would like to have OSU students working during the summer at Second Avenue Elementary School since it is a year-round school.”

The number one request that the Learning Bridge receives from teachers and principals is more OSU student tutors.

Dave Kindinger, principal at Fifth Avenue Alternative Elementary School for International Studies agrees.

“I would like to see technology-oriented tutors who are confident,” Kindinger said. “I would like to see them teach the children how to use computers.”

By autumn 2002 the Learning Bridge committee could potentially have 180 OSU students working in schools two days per week and a total of four hours per week.

“We want one-on-one tutoring, classroom support and instructional support,” Polemeni said.

The Service Learning Initiative, which is a sub-committee of the Learning Bridge, is developing a Web based database called the Community Connection. This database will match volunteers or OSU students, faculty, staff who are looking for opportunities to volunteer.

“The volunteering could be in the neighborhood schools or the community agencies,” Polemeni said. “We are developing this and hope it will be ready for students, faculty, staff, and agencies to use in fall 2002.”

“The Learning Bridge is a program we can work across the board in all of our elementary schools in the University District.”

“I think it is an excellent idea to coordinate the efforts of OSU with the surrounding schools,” Kindinger said. “It is also great because we now have a clearinghouse to go to.”

The Learning Bridge also has goals of offering similar programs to its middle and high schools that are in the program.

Childcare programs are being offered at Fort Hayes Career Center and North Adult Education Center. High school students involved in these programs are trained to become future childcare workers.

To learn more about the Learning Bride and other P-12 components log on to: www.osu.edu/p12/about_p12.html