A three-year grant of $885,000 from the William Penn Foundation will enable Settlement Music School to embark on its sixth year of intensive after school music programming in partnership with Philadelphia schools. The Music Education Pathways program, serving 230 students, creates bands, orchestras, and choirs at schools in some of Philadelphia’s most underserved areas.

“We are so grateful for the continued support from the William Penn Foundation,” said Sally Weiss, Director of Music Education Pathways. “They helped us launch the program five years ago, and their continued support enables us to deepen the impact our program has on the lives of so many students in Philadelphia.  We appreciate the opportunity to continue this very important work for the next three years.”

The Pathways program began in 2013 at two schools serving 65 students in 3^rd to 8^th grades and will now teach 230 children, from 3^rd to 12^th grade, who come from under-resourced neighborhoods. Participating students receive 30 weeks of high-quality instruction, mentoring, and performance experience over the course of a school year and have instruments to take home with them. The 12 Pathways faculty are accomplished and dedicated teachers, several of whom also teach for the School District of Philadelphia. Student learning is guided by a rigorous curriculum and aligned to Pathways’ Five Core Values for Teaching and Learning: Creativity, Teamwork, Persistence, Self-evaluation, and Responsibility. This framework supports Settlement’s vision of “teaching with intentionality.”

“Pathways teachers focus on the importance of teamwork, leadership skills and perseverance, which are critical to success in adult life,” said Dr. Crystle Roye-Gill, principal of Thomas Holme School in the Northeast, now going into her fifth year of partnership with Settlement. “I am so grateful for this partnership and hope it continues far into the future.”