As we’ve returned back to post-pandemic “normal,” many NYC schools still struggle to provide safe, nurturing environments for students to learn and thrive. These disparities are especially prevalent in the Bronx and Harlem. One of our nonprofit clients, DREAM!, launched in 2009 with a vision to change that.
After many years of working as a youth educator, mentor, and leader in New York City, DREAM!’s Executive Director, Aisha Norris, pinpointed common needs among the youth she supported — conflict management skills ranked number one. And, when classroom conflict is high, student engagement and academic success suffer, contributing to higher suspension and drop-out rates. Aisha co-founded DREAM! to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline. She knew by helping students, educators, families, and underserved communities acquire the practical skills and confidence they need to resolve conflicts creatively and productively, schools would experience an increase in student engagement and higher rates of personal and academic success.
DREAM! Started in 2009 by teaching conflict resolution skills through the arts. Aisha Norris, Executive Director and Co-Founder explains:
“We hosted a powerful theatrical experience for 15,000 young people over the span of three years about how teens navigated conflict growing up in the Bronx. That’s when we decided this work is really powerful, and we launched more formal conflict resolution and restorative justice training for students, parents, educators, and staff,” she says. “We wanted to give schools a system that’s sustainable.”
Aisha and her team knew that corrective discipline was not the answer to student conflicts, so they brought their own solution to NYC schools: restorative justice through the arts. Restorative justice focuses on shifting away from punitive discipline and enforces the idea that crime and harm are violations of people and relationships. DREAM!’s restorative practices programs encourage social-emotional learning and arts engagement. Their programs provide tools to challenge negative behavior in a way that holds all parties accountable for their part in the conflict in order to make things right.
“Restorative justice training isn’t just for teachers. It’s also important for the people our students first contact when they come to school,” says Aisha. “There was one incident where a school support staff member was physically aggressive toward a student who verbally disrespected them, and that’s when we decided we would start offering training to school support staff, as well.”
For students, DREAM! offers peer mediation training, which involves experiential, fun workshops to help them change the way they deal with conflict. These trainings assist students and staff in reducing student suspensions and encourage a shift towards “talking it out” rather than fighting. In schools that utilize DREAM!’s culmination of restorative practice training for parents, staff, teachers, and students, the transformations speak for themselves. For example, International Community High School and the High School for Contemporary Arts saw a 53 to 63 percent reduction in school suspensions after the first year of training, and by the second year, school suspensions fell by 73 to 78 percent! With an impact like that, it’s no wonder Aisha’s goals for DREAM! continue to evolve.
“Starting this year, we’re going to train advisory teachers with our curriculum so that all of the students receive it and not only the ones receiving mediation,” Aisha tells us. “One of my major goals is for conflict resolution to be part of the educational experience for everyone.”
As one of the few Bronx banks, our community means everything to us, so we resonate deeply with nonprofits like DREAM! It’s been a pleasure working with Aisha and supporting her with our nonprofit line of credit and our trusted nonprofit banking solutions! We know nonprofits like DREAM! operate differently, often waiting on extended payment cycles, for example. So, we’re keen on helping them reach their goals with our nonprofit loan products, lines of credit, and checking account options.
DREAM! uses their line of credit to manage day-to-day cash flow. Payments from school and city contracts often take up to six months to receive.
“As a small nonprofit organization, Spring Bank is the only financial institution that offered us a line of credit. We use it to help with payroll needs when we’re waiting for payments from past-due invoices,” says Aisha.
Learn more about DREAM!’s impact here and discover internship opportunities. Connect with us to learn how our nonprofit banking solutions can transform your organization. We also encourage you to consider our business bank account for small businesses and learn how we put our mission into action as a community bank in New York.
