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SUN is a network of youth, parents, community businesses and organizations with the goal of providing support and resources that ensure youth academic success and community building.

SUN is driven by the idea of Community Schools, which are full-service neighborhood hubs where schools and partners from across the community collaborate to ensure kids receive services and supports they need to be successful.  

“Research has shown that Community Schools is a local engagement strategy that creates and coordinates opportunities with its public school to accelerate student success. It serves as a vehicle for hyper-local decision-making that responds to the unique needs of each community.

By bringing together the relationships and assets of a neighborhood, Community Schools can efficiently and effectively utilize resources to advance the well-being of children and their families now and for future generations.” () 

SUN program is implemented through:

SUN Extended Day and Enrichment: SUN provides extended-day academic and enrichment programs that are linked with the school day. This is a place where students can find academic support in group and 1-on-1 tutoring, enrichment programming in, art, tech, special skills classes and recreational activities in sports, games, and social/community building programming. 

Each site is unique in it’s programming in that programming is specialized to fit it’s community and in alignment with it’s school outcomes. 

Early Kindergarten Transition (EKT): EKT is a collaborative program, partnering with multiple agencies including the SUN Community Schools. It is a free 3 week summer program for incoming Kindergarten students. Children practice school routines and expectations with a kindergarten teacher while parents meet regularly, begin relationships with each other and school staff, and learn how to support their child’s learning at home. 

SUN acts as both coordinating and facilitating entities. EKT programming includes SUN staff that help facilitate parent meetings, day-to-day coordination, supplies, food etc, SUN Site Managers help with outreach and meet with school teams in planning, and SUN assist on operations e.g. area/room coordination, student meals, program logistics. 

SUN Youth Advocacy (SYA) & Family Resource Coordinator (FRC): SUN also offers student and family wrap-around support. 

SUN Youth Advocacy (SYA) will work with students in supporting their success inside and outside of school. The key services that SYA offers include:

• Assertive Engagement advocacy and support activities, like one-on-one academic supports, advocating for youth in school, working with youth to create an individualized success plan, referring youth to other services as needed
• Out-of-school time supports, like homework help, tutoring, summer programs, and after school groups
• Help finding other services to meet your family’s needs?
• Whole family support and family engagement, like home visits, help with school meetings, and community celebrations

Family Resource Coordinators (FRN): FRN will work with families in providing support by allocating/coordinating resources. Key services that FRN offers include: 

• Food and basic supply Need
• Unemployment benefits and Medicaid/OHP
• Educational supports
• Skill building
• Rent and energy assistance 
• Youth/family engagement

Partners

Our community based organizations are a vital part of the SUN service system and Community Schools. Each SUN site is hosted by 1 of 5 community based organizations: Self Enhancement Inc (SEI), Latino Network, Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization (IRCO), Parks & Recreation. 

Once enrolled into SUN programming students and families, resources and services that are provided by the agency also become available. This includes rent and energy assistance, case management, health and counseling services, employment programming, food pantries, enrichment opportunities etc. 

èßäapp¹ÙÍø’s Role

As part of èßäapp¹ÙÍø’s RESJ Partnership Investment Strategies, we intentionally partner with culturally specific and multicultural organizations to meet the needs of our diverse student body and community. Below is a chart that describes our strategies and how SUN Services align:

For more information about SUN please visit: