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Board hears proposal to join My Brother’s Keeper Lake County alliance to expand mentorship and trauma supports
Summary
District staff described plans to participate in My Brother's Keeper Lake County, an alliance that links schools with community partners for mentoring and trauma-informed services; the board asked about language access, milestone outcomes and parental consent for outside programming.
The board received a presentation June 5 on a proposed memorandum of understanding to join My Brother’s Keeper Lake County, a community alliance that organizes mentorship and trauma-informed supports for young men of color.
Director of Social Emotional Learning Mr. Franklin explained the chapter model and said East Chicago had appointed 12 student ambassadors from East Chicago High School who attended a May field trip and round-table session with other regional partners. Franklin framed the alliance as an out-of-school partnership that brings non-profit and university partners to provide mentoring, healing and enrichment. He said the local alliance is co‑chaired by Lake County prosecutor Bernard Carter with Edgewater Health as the fiscal agent.
Franklin warned that some emerging state or federal policies could limit schools' in-house ability to provide trauma-informed services and framed the alliance as a community route to maintain supports for students. "If trauma is not addressed and there's no opportunities for healing, then essentially that means for some of our kids, it's illegal to learn," Franklin said during the presentation.
Trustees asked operational questions — how ambassadors were selected, whether programming would be accessible to Spanish-speaking families and what community partners would deliver the alliance milestones (such as school-readiness and reading at grade level). Franklin said ambassadors were selected by East Chicago High School administration and that the alliance model includes community organizations (example given: Communities In Schools) that would provide tutoring and other services. Board members requested language-accessible outreach materials and clarification about parental consent and media/photo releases for students participating off campus; board counsel said participation and any image use would be governed by parental consent forms.
Ending: The board discussed next steps; administration reported an MOU had been submitted by Edgewater and that the district would continue participation planning for school year 2025–26, including language-access and parental consent procedures.
