Key Partnerships
Parkway West High School
Parkway West High School is a special-admit high school of only 350 students located in West Philadelphia at 48th St. and Fairmount Avenue. The Bryn Mawr Civic Engagement Office, and the Bi-Co Education Program have been partnered with Parkway West since the summer of 2008 when Dr. Kathleen McCladdie transitioned from her position as principal of Overbrook Elementary, where we had established a key partnership, to become principal of Parkway West. Dr. McCladdie, the Civic Engagement Office, and professors in the Education program were excited about the unique opportunity to partner with this small high school, which has a focus on both preparing students for college as well as encouraging students to become educators in urban settings by engaging them in Education-related curriculum and providing urban education internships during high school.
Parkway West one of nine Philadelphia schools to take part in the Senior Project Initiative, which partners high schools with area colleges and universities to provide college-student mentors to high school seniors as they complete a rigorous yearlong research project. Bryn Mawr and Haverford students have worked as mentors through the Senior Project Initiative as well as in a variety of other capacities at the school. Since beginning the partnership students have completed Community Based Research projects at the school, served as classroom assistants to teachers, and individual tutors and mentors to students in a newly established tutoring center. Another hallmark of this partnership has been creating collaborative learning experiences for college students and high school students to learn together in the same classroom. This has been facilitated through trips taken by both Parkway students to attend classes at Bryn Mawr and Haverford, as well as Bi-Co classes traveling to Parkway for classes. This year, the schools are strengthening the partnership with the help of an AmeriCorps*VISTA position devoted to building a sustainable partnership between Parkway and Bryn Mawr.
For more information about Parkway West, you can visit their website.
Parkway West's Urban Teacher Academy was featured in the Philadelphia Public School Notebook newspaper. To see the article go to http://www.thenotebook.org/teacher-academy .
Happenings at Parkway:
- Bi-College students and Parkway West High School students volunteer together at Aspen Community Garden. Featured in the Bi-College News.
