Citizen Schools

Citizen Schools is re-imagining the middle school experience for low income students; ensuring that each child has the academic support, hands-on learning experiences and mentorship required to combat the opportunity gap and position them for success in high school, college and as productive and inspired members of American society. Citizen Schools was founded in 1995 by Eric Schwarz and Ned Rimer, former college roommates concerned with the rise of youth crime, struggling neighborhoods, and challenges within public schools in Boston. The extended learning time (ELT) model Citizen Schools uses today grew out of a series of successful summer-time apprenticeships, taught by Eric and Ned. In his first apprenticeship, Eric leveraged his expertise as a reporter to engage twenty students at a Dorchester elementary school; helping each child write and edit articles that they later fashioned into a traditional newspaper using a local printing press. Eric has outlined his experiences growing Citizen Schools and its impact on student learning nationwide in his recent book, The Opportunity Gap. Over the past 20 years, Citizen Schools has grown to serve students across the nation, using apprenticeships as a core component of its Extended Learning Time (ELT) model. The standard public school day, was developed to meet the needs of an agrarian society and not the high tech world of today. By partnering with Citizen Schools, public districts add on average 400 hours of instructional time to the school day; complementing traditional lessons with hands-on learning opportunities, academic support and structured homework time. Citizen Schools programming also builds non-cognitive or social and emotional skills through interactions with caring adults introduced to the school as Citizen Teachers, who run apprenticeships, and AmeriCorps Teaching Fellows, who are available to students both during traditional and extended school hours.