Project Grow’s Impact Highlighted in Recent Report
Project Grow is designed to provide academic, social, and emotional support to elementary school students who have experienced homelessness and housing instability. In 2022, we invested in an independent evaluation of the program to measure Project Grow’s effectiveness in meeting its goals.
The recently released Project Grow Student Progress Report published by Geo Education & Research (Geo) concluded that the program has a measurable positive impact on the test scores and grades of the elementary school students we serve. Project Grow students were compared to other students at their school with similar demographics and household income, and Geo found the following notable achievements:
- FAST (Florida Assessment of Student Thinking) Test: Project Grow students scored 18 percentage points higher in Math and 7 percentage points higher in English Language Arts.
- Palm Beach County i-Ready Diagnostic: Project Grow students scored 14 percentage points higher in Math and 7 percentage points higher in Reading.
- 2022 Report Card Grades: The percentage of Project Grow students earning “Proficient” or “Approaching Proficient” was 23 points higher in English Language Arts and 10 points higher in Math.
Geo also tracked high school graduation data for the students who participated in Project Grow during the 2007-08 school year and found that the Project Grow graduation rate was 4.4 percentage points higher than the district-wide average.
Not only does Project Grow provide a supportive, stable, and safe environment for students who have experienced homelessness, but its holistic curriculum and tutoring help students improve their educational performance and blaze a trail to high school graduation, which improves the long-term trajectory of their lives.
FULL REPORT: