King County’s Department of Community and Human Services (DCHS) is excited to announce two funding awards for King County Promise (KCP), a program model designed to develop a comprehensive student support model, helping historically underserved young people to obtain postsecondary credentials.
KCP is a public-private partnership engaging local K-12 school districts, Community Based Organizations (CBO), and Community and Technical Colleges (CTC). These entities will work together in partnership to implement the student support model, which is enabled and sustained through system-building improvements.
The two partnerships selected include:
- Highline Promise Partnership: Highline College, Highline Public Schools, Becoming a Man (of Southwest Youth and Family Services), Northwest Education Access
- Promise to Community (PtC) Partnership: Renton Technical College, Northwest Education Access, Congolese Integration Network, Centro Rendu (of St Vincent de Paul), Aerospace Joint Apprenticeship Committee (AJAC)
“We have intentionally built a promise partnership team that is grounded in equitable program practices and passionate about serving diverse, marginalized, gifted and resilient students.”
-Highline Promise Partnership
The first phase of KCP is focused on supporting immediate improvements in the lives of young people that lead to high school completion, postsecondary enrollment and postsecondary completion, as well as testing and continuously improving program models in a way that can guide long-term decision making for KCP investments.
“Given the inequities baked into so many of our systems, it is essential that the lived experience of our young people are reflected in this partnership. PtC has prioritized including community-embedded partners who reflect the young people we serve.”
– Promise to Community Partnership
These partnerships will work together with DCHS and the Puget Sound College and Career Network, a partner site of the Puget Sound Educational Service District, the system-supporting organization for KCP. They will serve students and Opportunity Youth during the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school years. The partnerships will also play an important role in working toward critical systems change that will positively impact King County students furthest from educational justice.
This award is one of the three strategies identified in the Implementation Plan for Investment of Puget Sound Taxpayer Accountability Account (PSTAA) Proceeds. PSTAA was created as an amendment to the 2015 State Transportation Revenue Package by the Washington State Legislature and directs that Sound Transit 3-related funds be used to improve educational outcomes. To learn more about PSTAA legislation and the community engagement process, check out the King County PSTAA webpage.
