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From the birth of the idea of our school, our founders were focused on the idea that school location must be intentionally determined to create the highest level of student, family and community impact. Our founders recognized that our space and place would dramatically influence how we could best serve children and families.
From the birth of the idea of our school, our founders were focused on the idea that school location must be intentionally determined to create the highest level of student, family and community impact. Our founders recognized that our space and place would dramatically influence how we could best serve children and families.
Location: The Project School is located in a 22,000 square foot building in the heart of downtown Bloomington, fully accessible via public transportation, for families from throughout the Bloomington community. The Project School entered into a contract with the City of Bloomington to utilize a City-owned property on Walnut Street in the downtown core as its home. In the summers of 2009 & 2010, The Project School completed a significant renovation and building addition to beautify the streetscape, dramatically improve the facility, and create a twenty-first century school. There has been a revitalization of this corridor of Bloomington - much of what had previously become a business and residential deadzone - due to the TPS becoming an anchor for redevelopment.
Our location provides access and allows us regularly utilize important and exciting community resources, such as Indiana University, Monroe County Public Library, public parks, downtown theatre spaces, and nonprofit organizations with shared values. Our location also allows us to minimize our school’s carbon footprint, by creating field trip and learning experiences which can be accessed by foot.
All students at TPS make daily use of a nearby city park for recess, passions classes and other outdoor experiences.
Students visit the Mathers Museum of World Cultures on a walking Field Trip
Community Connections: We believe in deep, transformative, collaborative partnerships and alliances that are mutually beneficial and that create greater impact for both organizations and for the community. Some of our community partnerships include —
Community Connections: We believe in deep, transformative, collaborative partnerships and alliances that are mutually beneficial and that create greater impact for both organizations and for the community. Some of our community partnerships include —
✽ The Ashoka Foundation. The Project School was selected to be a member of the Ashoka’s Changemaker Schools Network, joining forty plus innovative and influential schools chosen from across the country. Ashoka – a Washington DC-based foundation – launched the Changemaker Schools Network in 2012 to identify, recognize, and collaborate with innovative, influential schools that are rethinking education. The Network is a national growing community of schools that serve as models for cultivating students as changemakers, leading the way to ensure every child develops agency, empathy, and voice.
✽Bloomington Center for Connection. The Project School works collaboratively with the staff of the Bloomington Center for Connection to implement major components of the Lily Counseling Initiative, a grant received in 2017. This collaboration has resulted in the integration of Relational Cultural Theory, a 5-8 Advisory program, and the implementation of the work of Ross Greene, PhD. author of Lost & Found and Lost At School.
✽Books & Beyond. The Project School partners with an innovative ongoing service-learning program at Indiana University that seeks to develop globally-minded students who are prepared for life in the 21st century by increasing critical literacy skills, addressing the Rwandan book famine, and developing models for cross-cultural teaching and learning. For a number of years, the 5/6 TPS classroom has been paired with a Rwandan classroom. The students annually co-author a book of short stories and illustrations, which is then published and shared in both countries.
✽The Boys & Girls Club. The Project School partners with The Club for after school programming, sharing our resources in exchange for use of the Club gymnasium facilities.
✽City of Bloomington Martin Luther King, Jr. Commission. TPS regularly participates in city-led projects such as the Martin Luther King, Jr. “Day On Not A Day Off” service days, as well as the Students Auditing for Sustainability Project. TPS is proud to receive grant funds from the City for community service projects.
✽City of Bloomington Parks and Recreation. The Project School utilizes a public park (Third Street Park) as its playground. In 2011, TPS partnered with the City, with the IU Hospital Foundation, and with the national play focused company, Kaboom!, to install a brand new, partially student designed, playground for use not only by our school but by the whole community.
✽Giving Back to Africa. TPS partners with Giving Back to Africa by regularly hosting African educators for site visits, observations and mentoring. TPS and Giving Back to Africa are now implementing collaborative learning and research opportunities between students, teachers and university faculty, which include face-to-face dialogue and learning.
✽Global Gifts / Fair Trade Bloomington. Global Gifts is a fair trade nonprofit business operated by Fair Trade Bloomington. With the shared values of equity, social justice and environmental sustainability, Global Gifts has built a substantive partnership with TPS. We organize fundraising nights at Global Gifts in support of the school, and Global Gifts uses TPS as a lab site for their Fair Trade curriculum designs.
✽IU Center for the Study of Global Change. Indiana University Center for the Study of Global Change provides programming and curriculum outreach for our students and families. An example is our annual “International Night,” during which IU faculty and students set up cultural displays and activities at TPS. This event is attended annually by hundreds of individuals. TPS provides their graduate students with hands-on training opportunities.
✽IU Kelley Initiative for Social Innovation - Kelley Business School. TPS & KISI partner together on fundraising projects to benefit the school. KISI also provides student volunteers to staff TPS events, and also hosts roundtable seminars during which business students work with TPS leadership to address business challenges faced by the school. TPS serves as an ongoing hands-on internship site for business school students.
✽IU Learning Sciences Program & IU Creativity Lab. TPS and the IULSP received a $199,000 grant to support a joint MakerSpace for the school and the larger community. IULSP provides staffing and teaching support as part of the TPS learning day. The IU Creativity Lab has been the leading force in the ongoing development of our school-wide technology infrastructure and increased capacity through systematic professional development around tools that leverage systems thinking concepts. In exchange, TPS provides a hands-on learning site for their graduate students.
✽IU School of Education. TPS serves as a practicum site for student teachers, field experiences, and doctoral work, providing an opportunity for education students to experience a unique public education model during their formative years of professional training.
✽IU Sciences. Indiana University Sciences Programs (chemistry, physics, etc.) provide regular supplementary science programming for our students and families. During our annual “Science Night,” many IU Science professors and students set up experiments and learning stations at TPS. This provides IU Sciences with hands-on learning opportunities for their students.
✽IU Service Learning Program. TPS serves as a placement site for an Indiana University ACE (Advocate for Community Engagement). The ACE is an undergraduate student who facilitates the service learning relationship between the school and IU faculty – including establishing partnerships and supervising undergraduate service learners in the school setting. The ACE is fully funded by Indiana University.
✽Shalom Community Center. Shalom Community Center is the local day-center for those experiencing homelessness in our community. TPS has built a service-learning program to facilitate our students engaging with the social justice issue of homelessness while also helping the clients of Shalom Community Center. Our first major project with the Shalom Center took place during the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday in 2014. TPS prepared 1000 care packages for the clients of the center. In 2015, TPS provided 500 family care packages, as well as some art installations, for the Shalom Center. In 2016, TPS again provided 1000+ personal item care packages for Shalom’s clients. In 2017 we held a public screening of a social justice film, and created large-scale art works for Shalom that shared Dr. King’s vision of inclusion and economic social justice.
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