Partners and Projects
Recent Projects
Grow Greater Englewood (2023-)
I supported this program by supporting convening meetings of stakeholders, completing internal and external asset mapping, creating a baseline set of program evaluation tools and creating their proposal for the Urban Earth Corp, a leadership development program for workforce development and green jobs. This has included regular meetings and outreach to national and local workforce development partners, community colleges, public schools and stakeholders. In addition completing and recommending some needs assessments in order to target specific partners for growth and expansion.
My Very Own Library at the University of Chicago (2019-2023)
Partnered with 7 non-profit organizations across the country and in the Dominican Republic to support free book fairs for over 100 school and 50,000 students along with facilitating an RFP Process, grants management and family community engagement grants for all schools and participants. During the program years, we created a YouTube Channel, ran two Giving Day events per year, supported and created program evaluation tools and partnered with NFL Alumni in Newark with the New York Giants Football team.
Parent Choice Project Evaluation
Through the evaluation collective that I founded, we supported a grant project with at $150,000 budget to create a survey, run focus groups and produce a report about school choice in Chicago. I was the project manager and convener of the meetings. I recruited organizations and families to participate and ran focus groups for families to help answer the major question of “why parents choose certain schools?”
Northwestern University Settlement House (2024-)
Served as interim Assistant Principal at Rowe Charter Elementary School, supported recruitment and partnership with targeted daycare and childcare providers from 10 targeted zip codes and created a community engagement playbook for targeted zip codes chambers of commerce.
Neighborhood Parent Training and Engagement (2019-)
As part of my position at the University of Chicago, I worked to engage faculty and staff families by conducting workshops on how to apply to Chicago Public Schools and how to determine the right fit for your child and your family at a school. These “lunch and learn” conversations turned into virtual trainings in the pandemic and I have continued to offer these sessions at least 3 to 4 times a year for stakeholders across the city in Spanish and English.
Men of Color Read (2022-)
Starting in 2022, I led, coordinated and worked with 6 non-profit organizations to acquire books over one thousand a year, creating virtual programming, finding supporting, sponsoring and partner organizations locally and nationally. This upcoming fall we kicked off our virtual sessions with a summer reading panel and will culminate with a national author event with award winning author and illustrator Jerry Craft. The last two years I have worked with Bookelicious, National Parents Union and Language Empowers All People.
Mikva Program Impact Evaluation
Trained, supported and led a process along with the Justice Labs of America, Strategic Evaluations and Project Syncere to set up focus groups, analyze data and conduct a third party evaluation of the impact of the student and staff connected to Mikva Challenges Chicago and Washington D.C. programming.
Recent Service Work
Children’s Literacy Initiaitive, Chicago Advisory Board
Chicago Positive Impact, Board Member
Great Lakes Charter School, Board Chair
Bronzeville Classical Elementary School, Local School Council Community Representative
ILA Curriculum Project (2023-)
Supported the design and development of the GtoG curriculum and program evaluation tools for in person and virtual training.
Brothers Teaching Initiative-Statewide Field Building (2024-2025)
Led the organization and execution of three statewide learning exchanges and a statewide conference where over 20 university, school districts and non profit organizations shared problems of practice, student voices and best practices on increasing the black and brown male teacher pipeline.
Chicago Public School External Stakeholder Engagement (2022-)
I have been a thought partner for literacy in Chicago since the 2019. As a leader and provider of programming and books, I represented and covered parts of the southside of Chicago to support the Chicago Public Schools Department of Literacy Vision 1.0 work. As a consultant, I supported and contributed to a set of tools to have targeted community conversations and facilitated a set of conversations across sectors and industries about literacy in Chicago for vision 2.0. This has included attending community meetings, presenting to a wide variety of stakeholders and bringing people together.
Partners
This is text about the Timothy Community Corporation
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Notable Clients
Duane’s passion for education is both evident and inspiring. I worked with Duane supporting, filming and documenting the My Very Own Library initiative for the University of Chicago. His dedicated and driven approach to everything he does made the work he did seem larger than life. From the launch of the initiative in the Chicago Public School system, to pivoting the program to continue virtually through the pandemic for schools around the world, Duane was always a cheerful and tireless collaborator and leader. Whatever Duane does seems to have a lasting and profound impact.
— Keith P., RE Collaborator
