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More Ohio K-12 schools could soon benefit because of philanthropic donation

 Kids in a Columbus area elementary school
Jo Ingles
/
Statehouse News Bureau
Kids in a Columbus area elementary school learn during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks to a donation to the Communities in Schools program, more schools with low-income students will be able to participate.

A $133 million donation is going to a program that links at-risk students with community services they need in order to be academically successful. The Communities in Schoolsprogram already helps 21,873 students in 34 K-12 schools throughout Ohio, and more will likely benefit.

Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott’s donation to the national Communities in Schools program will mean more schools with low-income students can participate. Communities in Schools Spokeswoman Amy Gordon says it will help Ohio kids whose families have suffered during this pandemic.

“Job loss and death of a breadwinner of a family and the resulting homelessness, loss of food … all of those things have just been magnified so incredibly in all of this,” Gordon said.

Gordon says it’s unknown which schools will get the extra dollars but the program wants to eventually operate in all K-12 schools that serve low-income populations.
Copyright 2022 The Statehouse News Bureau. To see more, visit The Statehouse News Bureau.

Jo Ingles is a professional journalist who covers politics and Ohio government for the Ohio Public Radio and Television for the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau. She reports on issues of importance to Ohioans including education, legislation, politics, and life and death issues such as capital punishment. Jo started her career in Louisville, Kentucky in the mid 80’s when she helped produce a televised presidential debate for ABC News, worked for a creative services company and served as a general assignment report for a commercial radio station. In 1989, she returned back to her native Ohio to work at the WOSU Stations in Columbus where she began a long resume in public radio.