Information: info@emc2now.com.
The togetherness of a community can help shape, define or redefine the culture of neighborhood schools.
Embracing Mays Community and Cluster Schools, or EMC2, is an advocacy group that promotes community support of the Atlanta Public Schools cluster that feeds into Benjamin E. Mays High School and the communities that surround those schools. The Mays cluster schools are: Adamsville Primary Elementary, Beecher Hills Elementary, Cascade Elementary, L.P. Miles Intermediate Elementary, Peyton Forest Elementary, West Manor Elementary and Jean Childs Young Middle School.
The organization has grassroots origins, stemming from a group of parents who began having conversations with other parents who were exploring middle school options aside from the neighborhood schools.
Dana Price, one of the founding EMC2 members, is a parent of five children, all of whom currently attend or have graduated from Mays cluster schools. She noticed that some parents of students in the cluster elementary schools were searching for other options when it came time for middle school. Some of the reasons she heard most often were thoughts that there were disparities in academic offerings and athletics, compared to private, charter and APS schools in other areas. “We thought we needed to dispel those rumors and let people know that the cluster schools were competitive and did have strengths and value,” Price said.
Some of the strategies that EMC2 has employed to foster a sense of community include a community parade, a Black History Month program, which gave students and opportunity to meet and ask questions of some of the senior citizens from the community concerning civil rights and the roles they played in the efforts, and a community e-newsletter, highlighting the positive things going on at each of the cluster schools and the community at-large.
The group’s efforts have garnered partnerships with area businesses and attracted the support of city councilpersons and school board members. Atlanta City Councilman C.T. Martin is one of the supporters of the upcoming EMC2 Festival of Creativity, a free event scheduled for Saturday, February 28, 2015 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Mays High School. The festival goal is “to use the festival to spark thinking, ideas and action to revitalize creativity in our schools and community.” According to the festival literature, vendors and community partners are needed to help explore creativity in visual and performing arts, science, innovation, technology, education and entrepreneurship.
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