Please click here to download the RFP for the 2013 IPC Summer Camp.

The Indianola Promise Community  (IPC) is a project of Delta Health Alliance and unites health care, education, community, and faith-based services to create a “pipeline” of resources, from prenatal care through high school graduation, leading students into meaningful careers and financial independence.  The goal is to ensure children are ready for school, improve the educational experience, keep students in school through graduation, provide a transition to postsecondary education, and, ultimately, to break the cycle of poverty.  One of the keys is that we don’t focus on individual programs addressing individual needs.  Instead, the Promise Community offers a collective approach, with programs and services complementing each other and building on each other in a coordinated fashion.

To ensure this mission is successful, we rigorously measure the performance of every program.  We set objective goals for increases in early childhood ratings, the state’s standardized achievement tests, graduation rates, and parental involvement.  IPC has retained independent firms to identify these yardsticks and to assess program outcomes throughout the life of the grant.   If a program is not meeting its benchmarks, changes will be made.

By offering a comprehensive set of programs that are independently evaluated, assessed and reassessed on a regular basis, in partnership with the people who live and work in our neighborhoods, we can ensure that new generations of Delta children graduate from high school with the world in front of them.  And, just as important, we will also be creating a model that can be replicated throughout the Delta and the state.  The problems and challenges in Indianola are not unique.  The solutions we develop in Indianola can be used to turn any community into a promise community.

For the past several years, our initiatives in Indianola have been generously funded by a combination of grants from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Kellogg Foundation.

Going forward, our presence in Indianola will expand dramatically, thanks to a $30 million grant IPC has received from the U.S. Department of Education (DoE).  For each of the next five years, we will receive $6 million to strengthen existing programs and to grow new ones in the heart of the Mississippi Delta.  DHA was among only seven organizations across the country to receive an award from this highly competitive grant program. IPC was the only awarded program serving a rural area and the only winning applicant in the southeast region.

We are in the process now of working with the IPC Steering Committee, public officials, and community leaders to develop a plan for implementation of this important grant.  We anticipate the release of that plan later in April.

In the meantime, these are the current programs up and running in Indianola.

Parents as Teachers (PAT)

If the Promise Community means anything, it means creating the opportunity for every child in Indianola to excel in school.  We know from the latest academic research that the earlier we start with a child, the greater the opportunity for success.  That’s why IPC starts at the very beginning.  Our outreach project is called Parents as Teachers (PAT), it’s modeled after a national program by the same name, and it’s designed to improve prenatal care and the health and development of infants.

Our PAT initiative recruits women from Indianola, trains them as outreach workers, and assigns them to families enrolled in the program.  Leading by example, the “parent-educators” listen to other parents’ concerns, educate them about nutrition, healthy living, and children’s development; model positive parenting practices; and provide help connecting them to social services.

The SPARK in Early Childhood Education

Anjohnette Gibbs understands that a single spark can light the fires of success for students eager to learn.  “You have to understand that we have so many children who come from households that are just struggling to live and where education hasn’t been at the top of the list,” Gibbs said of Indianola and Sunflower County, “SPARK is about starting as early as possible to assist these children and wrapping the community around them.”

A consultant working with IPC, Gibbs is referring to an early childhood learning program called “Supporting Parents to Assure Ready Kids” or SPARK. The program has three components:

1. To assist children age 3-5 who have communication deficiencies in speech and vocabulary by providing in and after-school sessions as they prepare for kindergarten and first grade.
2. To train parents to identify and address specific problems in their children’s cognitive development.  These sessions occur once a month for all parents whose children participate in the program.
3. To establish a local collaboration of community stakeholders to work through local challenges and roadblocks that prevent a child from receiving the very best education.  Meetings are held on the second Tuesday of each month.  Standardizing curricula among the child care centers, Head Start classes, and Kindergarten classes is an example of issues the group tackles.

The Promise School

Another early childhood education initiative is the Promise School.  The program is in its fifth year of operation, runs from early June to late July, and provides a one-of-a-kind education experience for rising kindergarteners in Indianola.

“When you see these kids in the summer, you see such quick growth. It’s like rapid fire – bam, bam, bam,” said Geisha Forrest, a Promise School teacher, “This program is so important because we can work with these children in small settings, one-on-one, and we find the parents getting more involved, which is so vital. Our main goal is just to make sure they are well prepared for kindergarten.”

With a daily summer enrollment of 100 children and 10 per class, each child receives the individual attention needed to learn. From 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. each day, five days a week for eight weeks, the young students are involved in activities that will put them about nine weeks ahead of other kindergartners.   The school focuses on the basics – reading, math, science, social skills – using state-of-the-art curriculum materials and class equipment.  Students discuss news of the day, write in journals, learn self-help skills and just talk with their teachers. There is free play and structured play outside on the playground. There is “Sesame Street” and “Between the Lions” inside on the DVD player. There is breakfast, lunch, snacks and naps.

Parents for Public Schools

In a historically troubled school district, Vera Johnson knows that adding or taking away a single element from an equation can spell the difference between success and failure. In this case, the element is parents.

“Parents had really been absent from the decision-making table,” said Johnson of Parents for Public Schools of Jackson.  “They had no input and weren’t able to offer direction. Without that, it’s difficult to have complete buy-in from parents when decisions are made for them without them.”  But things are changing.

Two years ago, the Indianola Promise Community formed a partnership with the Jackson chapter of Parents for Public Schools to create a network of parents in Lockard and Carver Elementary Schools with the knowledge, skills and motivation to work with teachers and administrators to change district and school policies and to be more engaged in the arts and humanities at their children’s schools.

Improving Student Academic Achievement

Covering the walls outside the classrooms at Lockard Elementary School are multi-colored bar graphs that stretch down each hallway.  What’s most noticeable is that each bar on each graph is higher than the one before it.

This isn’t elementary school artwork, but a record of student accomplishment and an illustration of the success of a new program called simply, “Improving Student Academic Achievement.”

“So far, our scores are going up this year,” said Frankie Blackmon, curriculum coordinator for the Indianola Public School District (IPSD). “And that’s such good news for students who have historically struggled as they moved from grade to grade.”

This academic achievement program represents a collaboration of the IPSD and the Indianola Promise Community.  It started during the 2012-13 school year for students in grades K-2 at Lockard Elementary School, but also includes the third grade at Carver Elementary School.

The program has three components:

1. Teaching assistants in second grade classes to help with the critical year before the third grade.
2. Professional development for teachers, giving them additional skills to meet the needs of every student.  The classes take place on weekends and after school at least twice a month.
3. Opening a parent center at Lockard, providing parent liaisons at both schools, training parent tutors, and coordinating this effort with the Parents for Public Schools project.