In 2021, the Center for Thriving Children at Boston College partnered with the Center for Vibrant Schools at Marian University to bring City Connects to Indiana. Since then, City Connects has expanded to more than 40 Indiana public, private, community, and charter schools. City Connects has worked with community partners to connect thousands of Indiana students to critical support services and enrichment opportunities. It has also worked with partners across Indiana to learn about implementing evidence-based integrated student support in a school-choice state; in rural, suburban, and urban communities; and in a city with a vision for better addressing the needs and interests of the children and families who live there.
With the blog on summer vacation, this week we’re sharing past posts on City Connects’ work in Indiana.
City Connects Helps Close Achievement Gaps, Reduce Chronic Absenteeism in Indiana
April 10, 2026
New research from the Center for Thriving Children examines City Connects’ impact in Indiana, looking at the effect on student achievement and attendance, the realities of adapting to a rural setting, and the evolving perceptions of school leaders.
“We’ve accumulated a lot of evidence of City Connects’ impact in the context of Massachusetts schools, especially in Boston. We know that Indiana is a very different state politically and when it comes to education policies like school choice. Our new findings are a testament to the idea that this intervention can be robust and work to improve student outcomes under very different contexts and policy backgrounds,” said Haibin Jiang, Researcher at Boston College’s Mary E. Walsh Center for Thriving Children.
This spring, members of the Center for Thriving Children’s Research and Evaluation team presented this research at the American Educational Research Association’s annual meeting in Los Angeles. Their symposium, From the Coast to the Heartland: Scaling Integrated Student Support Systems in the Post-Pandemic Era, offered practitioners, policymakers, and researchers a look at what it takes to implement integrated student support with depth and integrity across diverse schools. READ MORE
City Connects Finds Success in First Rural Setting
June 12, 2026
City Connects’ expansion into the Metropolitan School District of Shakamak, Indiana gave researchers an opportunity to examine how this evidence-based model of integrated student support would adapt to the strengths and needs of a rural community. They found that despite a smaller and more spread-out population, City Connect Coordinators were able to connect students with 230 service partners and programs by the end of their third year.
“Often in urban settings, City Connects coordinates services through partnerships with nonprofit organizations. In Shakamak, there were often more informal avenues to find services. . . It wasn’t always systematized, but the community found ways to offer services to students,” explained Jee Hun (Mike) Yoo, Evaluation Researcher at the Center for Thriving Children and lead author of this case study. “When a system like City Connects is paired with the already existing strengths of a rural community, there is a real opportunity for a synergistic effect. It can help motivate a close-knit community to come together and provide the support students need.”
This community-wide effort has led to a plethora of important enrichment opportunities and critical support for students and families, like new student clubs at the elementary school, connections to internships at the high school, and an annual resource fair to connect parents to opportunities for support during the summer. READ MORE
A City View: Indianapolis Launches Dashboard Showcasing City Connects Data
November 12, 2024
The City of Indianapolis launched ConnectIndy, a new data dashboard that showcases City Connects data from nearly 30 Indianapolis schools. The data—which can be viewed at the school-level, neighborhood-level, or city-level—is based on City Connects’ personalized student support plans and tracks students’ top strengths, needs, and interests, services received by students, and barriers to services. The dashboard also features a city-wide resource map.
Communities can use this information to better serve students and their families. This could lead to investments in programs that ignite the interests of young people—like art programs or field trips to an art museum, for example. It could also help the community choose critical areas for investment, like providing transportation or translators to support access to services.
“The goal of ConnectIndy is to show what matters most to our students, schools, and communities,” said Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett. “From cooking classes and robotics clubs to reading and math support, our young people have a wide range of interests and needs that can be met through local partnerships with nonprofits and businesses. With the dashboard, these partnerships will be more effective by targeting already-identified needs and interests.” READ MORE
