Five Questions With: Dan Corley

Dan Corley is seen with students at Community Preparatory School. / COURTESY JOANNE RICH
Dan Corley is seen with students at Community Preparatory School. / COURTESY JOANNE RICH

Community service may be a pasttime for some people, but for Dan Corley, school reform advocate and founder of Community Preparatory School, it is the focus of his career. In 1984, Corley founded Community Preparatory School in the heart of South Providence and for the past two decades has implemented and refined innovative teaching techniques that have enabled Community Prep to grow from a small, neighborhood, inner-city school to a model in urban education.

PBN: What drew you to the education field?
CORLEY:
While living on the first floor of my grandmother’s house in Providence’s West End neighborhood, children often helped me with our garden. Later on, when I met my wife, we decided to raise our children in that same house and the neighbors, who knew I had a teaching degree from Brown, asked me to help with their children’s education. At the time, I was working at Ocean Tides in Narragansett, a program for adjudicated youth, and it didn’t make sense to travel to Narragansett each day, especially when some of those boys I was helping were originally from the West End. Why not help them before they got into serious trouble? I knew that middle school was a time when children are more influenced by their peers than their parents. So my neighbors and I decided to start a school in which students could be supported and have a positive influence on each other.

PBN: Why is the expansion of the school’s campus “the realization of a decades-long dream?”
CORLEY:
Community Prep has always offered rigorous academics. More than 94 percent of our graduates have gone on to excellent college-preparatory high school programs, 84 percent of whom are of age are enrolled in college or have graduated and 93 percent of eligible eighth-graders have been accepted to Classical High School. While exam scores are an important part of that acceptance process, we haven’t had facilities to match our academic program. For years, we’ve worked to secure support for campus expansion, and in 2012, our Board of Trustees made it a top priority. Now, we are remodeling our building to accommodate 100 additional students, creating new classrooms, meeting rooms and office space as well as addressing structural issues and installing solar panels.

PBN: How does the expansion provide new learning opportunities for the student body?
CORLEY:
Expanding the campus enables us to achieve another key objective: serving a greater number of deserving children. Currently, Community Prep’s student body is 150. After expansion, we will accommodate 250 students through our partnership with the new SouthSide Elementary Charter School, which not only shares our building but also our educational principles. This charter school would not be possible without the extra classroom space we are creating. Students from both schools will benefit from the upgraded academic and physical education facilities, and it is our hope students from SouthSide Elementary will enjoy new learning opportunities by continuing their education at Community Prep.

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PBN: How will the expansion at the school impact its students
CORLEY:
The expanded campus will make Community Prep more welcoming, improve security and bring us one step closer to providing the academic environment our students and their families need and deserve. Local children with the greatest need will directly benefit through our partnership with SouthSide Elementary, since the charter school will give preference to families that have been homeless in the recent past. Plus, Amos House, the charter school’s lead sponsor, will provide the social work, adult education and employment services the students, and their parents, may need.

PBN: Will the expansion have an impact on the surrounding community?
CORLEY:
Community Prep’s renovated and expanded facilities will be available to neighborhood children and community groups. Yet, the greatest impact on the surrounding community will be long-term. Community Prep alumni are leaders in their schools, businesses and communities. Many stay in or return to Rhode Island to live, work and raise their families. As we help an even greater number of deserving children to communicate effectively, problem solve and embrace community service, many will become tomorrow’s community and business leaders in Rhode Island and beyond.

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