Families, Parks and Recreation

Mayor's Children and Education Initiative

…leveling the playing field for Orlando’s most vulnerable children

Parramore Kidz Zone aims to reduce juvenile crime, teen pregnancy, and high school drop-out rates in Orlando’s highest poverty, highest crime neighborhood.

Strategy
 

• Identify a community challenged by high levels of crime and poverty, where children disproportionately drop out of school and enter the juvenile justice system.
•  Deploy a full time outreach team to the zone, build strong relationships with neighborhood youth and families, door-to-door and street-by-street, mobilizing folks to take back their community.
•   Engage all sectors - faith, education, non-profit, neighborhood, civic, corporate and government - in a coalition united to transform the neighborhood.
•   Make targeted investments that enhance the neighborhood’s pre-k, education, health, afterschool, economic, and youth development programs, and systematically connect children to these opportunities.
•   Leverage funding from all sectors and meticulously evaluate and disseminate results.

Accomplishment

Broad range of new programs launched or scaled up since 2006 including:

• Six free tutoring sites;
• Comprehensive pre-kindergarten programs, including childcare subsidies, Head Start, and the PKZ Baby Institute (modeled after the HCZ Baby College);
• Comprehensive youth development programming including: teen facilities, youth employment, college access, community service opportunities, educational and cultural experiences, leadership development, and high school graduation programs;
• Comprehensive health and wellness programs; and
• Enhanced access to out-of-school time care for children of all ages.
• Since PKZ’s launch in 2006, 2,509 children have been registered.  In FY09-10, 466 participated in PKZ after school tutoring programs, 126 in pre-kindergarten programs, 129 in health and fitness programs, and 362 in youth development programs.

Since 2006, data shows:

• Improved Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) math and reading scores for Parramore’s elementary, middle and high school students.
• An 81.3% decline in the juvenile arrest rate in Parramore.
• In 2010, PKZ was named Florida’s first Children’s Initiative by the Ounce of Prevention Fund of Florida. 

MOVE THE NEEDLE!

 “Parramore Kidz Zone is connecting children to programs that will positively impact their lives, while also developing a model of prevention that can be replicated in other City neighborhoods.”

-Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer

Current News

Dr. Timothy Blair Recognized For His Work In Parramore

Mayor Buddy Dyer proclaimed March 25, 2013 as “Dr. Timothy Blair Day” in the City of Orlando. Thirteen years ago, Dr. Blair created a Reading Camp in Parramore. The camp operates every Saturday during the school year and daily in the summertime.  It includes 1 ½ hours of tutoring provided free of charge to elementary school-aged children by Bachelors and Masters level Elementary Education students under Dr. Blair’s supervision. There is a companion Parent Education Program in which parents are taught how to teach their children to read at home.

 Over the past 13 years, the program has been attended by more than 2,000 Orlando elementary school children, kindergarten through 6^th grade.  More than 1,300 teachers have been trained in Reading Education through the program, and more than 500 parents have attended the Parent Education Program. Dr. Blair will retire this year, but his legacy will live on.