The New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE) has awarded a four-year, $52 million grant to United Way of New York City (UWNYC) to fight chronic absence through its Community Schools program. The award is the largest education grant ever given by the city to a nonprofit organization.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the “Attendance Improvement and Dropout Prevention” grant to provide social services at 40 high-needs schools. The program will be managed by the city in partnership with UWNYC and allow UWNYC to bolster resources for community-based partnerships, improving attendance rates and dropout prevention efforts for more than 40,000 New York City students over the course of the four years.

The Community Schools program offers services such as in-school mental health services, homework help and family counseling alongside classroom instruction.

Schools will submit proposals over the summer to be included in the program, with the amount of each school’s grant depending on the size of the school.

Attendance is one of the key strategies for UWNYC’s education initiatives, which aim to increase by 25% the number of youth graduating from high school ready for college, a career and citizenship by the year 2020. Over the last 20 years, UWNYC has worked hand-in-hand with the NYC DOE on improving attendance rates and preventing dropouts in the public schools.

Over the last seven years, UWNYC’s attendance improvement and dropout prevention programs benefitted more than 45,000 students across the city, giving students an attendance advantage of 8.5 days over their peers, adding up to more than 24,000 additional days of learning. Importantly, Black and Hispanic male students were as likely to improve attendance as all other participants, closing the attendance gap for black and Hispanic boys.

Community-based organizations, schools and anyone interested in more information can contact United Way of New York City at educate@uwnyc.org.