Blackstone Valley Prep enters new era of school integration efforts with federal grant

This week, we are honored to be presenting on Blackstone Valley Prep’s work on intentional diversity as part of a national meeting of the Century Foundation’s Bridges Collaborative in Washington D.C. The Bridges Collaborative is a first-of-its-kind school integration initiative that looks to bolster educational diversity. Over the next few days, in addition to giving a brief talk, we will be collaborating with school, housing, and community leaders from around the country, learning from each other, building grassroots political support, and developing successful strategies for racial and socio-economic integration. 

Our membership in the Bridges Collaborative is just one way Blackstone Valley Prep is making integration a priority. Our investments in this work were invigorated in October, when BVP was awarded a $500,000 “Fostering Diverse Schools Demonstration Grant” from the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. This funding is disbursed over a two-year period, ending in 2025.  The FDS Demonstration Grants Program is intended to help build the capacity of local educational agencies, like BVP, to meet the needs of students, including academic, social, emotional, and mental health by increasing access to and equity in diverse and inclusive learning environments. 

BVP was founded in 2009 from the belief that the most powerful thing you can do for a child in Central Falls is to put them in a seat next to a child from Cumberland or Lincoln, and the most powerful thing you can do for a child from Cumberland or Lincoln is to put them in a seat next to a child from Central Falls or Pawtucket. Our commitment to minimizing or removing systemic barriers in our school and broader community is innate. After bringing scholars from varying backgrounds together, we work diligently to ensure they are not re-segregated within our walls. We eschew tracking through high school, working to ensure the option of advanced placement classes are available to all students and that there are multiple ways to access them. 

This grant, which is restricted to a specific set of programs and activities, is having a transformative impact on BVP’s ability to implement strategies designed to sustain and strengthen its intentionally diverse model. With this support, we are funding valuable research and development, further building capacity for family engagement and communications so that all families understand the benefits of diverse classrooms and the quality of BVP’s program. We are investigating new ways to remove barriers to accessing academic and post-secondary opportunity for our low income students, including opportunities to expand our high school facilities. We are establishing programs that attract and retain our higher income students, while strengthening our classroom and school practices to build a community that fully integrates scholars of all income levels and backgrounds.

Through these efforts, BVP is sustaining its intentionally diverse model, offering exceptional outcomes for all 2,200 of our scholars, serving as a model for what can be achieved when barriers are dismantled, and contributing toward creating a fairer, more equitable, and just world for all.