The Rogers Park Youth Zone (RPYZ) is an initiative created by The Giving Tree Educational Consultants. It is partially inspired by the efforts of The Harlem Children's Zone. 

The Goal of RPYZ is to organize the Rogers Park community into a zone of comprehensive educational programming and opportunities that will address all of the areas that students need to be successful academically as well as in life. One of the initiative's objectives is to address the public outcry of Roger's Park officials, parents, and other community members for increased after-school programming to reduce youth led violence. 

The Rogers Park Youth Zone works to accomplish its goal by optimizing current assets in the Rogers Park educational community and working to create a well balanced portfolio of opportunities. In this aim, The Giving Tree has outlined the following:

Our Community Consulting Process

Stage 1: Establish the current Needs of the educational community as articulated by community demographics, stake holders and external evaluations.

Stage 2: Undertake a community assessment that identifies current assets that exist within the educational community (schools, supplemental programming, education opportunities, funding sources, space, etc).

Stage 3:  Seek to optimize the current education assets by linking supplemental programs, schools, community professionals, parents, residents, and community leaders.  Access resources (volunteerism, financial support) from local businesses and residents. 

Stage 4: Collaborate with stakeholders to establish and execute an educational plan that is reflective of the information obtained completing in objectives 1-3.

Stage 5: Provide ongoing evaluation of program outcomes to scale and offer researched-based feedback to management leaders for improving and refining program offerings.

The Giving Tree Educational Consultants provides professional development opportunities to teachers and administrators of schools and other educational programs.  Our professional development opportunities come in the form of in-service training workshops, seminars, conferences and retreats.