MARION COUNTY, FL (352today.com) – Marion County Public Schools (MCPS) officials and other local leaders gathered Thursday to announce that East Marion Elementary School (EMES) has received an $80,000 grant to provide more resources for parents, students, and families in one location – the school.

East Marion Elementary is the second school to be named a Community Partnership School (CPS) in the county. MCPS says the CPS model leverages partnerships in the community including the school district, universities or colleges, local nonprofits, and a healthcare provider.

This allows many students, families, and parents to have access to one location that provides education, academic success, physical, social and emotional health, plus parent/community engagement that they might not have had before.

“Families have lots of different kinds of needs these days and to be able to provide resources [and] gather all of those into one location just makes it more amenable and easier for families to take advantage of those resources,” said Kevin Christian, MCPS Director of Public Relations.

EMES Principal Sarah Dobbs says when you head across the bridge and toward the Ocala National Forest, the resources become very limited and says the needs are “indescribable.”

“Our students are some of the most fantastic students you will meet, but we have a lot of needs that have gone unmet for a very long time. We have some very humble families who don’t want to ask for help,” said Dobbs.

Dobbs says the grant process allowed her to evaluate the specific needs for her school and region and then create a plan accordingly.

“It’s put us in a good frame of mind to be looking at our data and our student needs. We’ve surveyed parents, surveyed students, surveyed the community to see what needs they think that we have, and some that we came up with when writing the grant were things that we hadn’t even thought of,” explained Dobbs. “We have a large mental health need in our region and location, so knowing that needs to be a big area of focus so that we can build resilient learners and increase the capacity in that way.”

College Park Elementary School (CPES) was the first school granted the opportunity back in 2021. Since then, MCPS officials say student attendance and academic achievement has improved, as well as students’ and families’ mental and physical health. CPES principal Teresa Forsyth says because of the partnership they have students who come to school happy because they have clothes, shoes, and school supplies like their friends.

College Park’s CPS model is called “The Husky Den.” The den offers healthcare, behavior support, food and school supplies, as well as other necessities like clothes for job interviews, school clothes, shoes and toiletries.  English language and life skills programs are also available.

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East Marion will now have the opportunity to implement the CPS model on its campus through the $80,000 allocated by the University of Central Florida and the State of Florida.

Other partners for the project include the United Way of Marion County, the College of Central Florida, Heart of Florida Health Center, HCA Florida Ocala Hospital, MCPS, and the Public Education Foundation of Marion County.