Partnerships

McPherson IB World School collaborates with several organizations and vendors to provide a wide variety of specialized programs and approaches. These initiatives are designed to enhance the lives of our students, fostering enrichment within and beyond the traditional classroom setting. Through these partnerships, we strive to offer a well-rounded educational experience that prepares students for success in a global context.

Common Threads

Common Threads is a national nonprofit that supports food as medicine. We inspire communities to embrace healthy cooking, healthy eating and the celebration of culture by providing children, families and educators with hands-on cooking and nutrition education classes. The after-school Small Bites nutrition education program teaches PreK-8th grade students about nutrition and healthy snack making through a series of eight hands-on lessons. Each lesson is aligned to national education standards and gives students the opportunity to connect math, language arts, and science concepts to interactive experiences that provide tools to live longer, healthier lives.

Learn about Common Threads

International Baccalaureate

Joffrey Ballet

The Joffrey Ballet believes in the positive, transformative power of the arts. Their mission is to promote dance through an unwavering commitment to high-quality performances, education, and innovation. To this end, Joffrey Ballet partners with our after-school program to offer beginner ballet classes to students in K-Grade 2 and African, hip-hop, jazz, and Latin dance classes to students in Grades 3-5.

Learn about Joffrey Ballet

Musical Chairs Studio

Musical Chairs is Chicago's licensed Boutique School for music, theater and art in Lincoln Square. Our mission fosters a love for the arts, provides an outlet for creative expression and builds self-confidence while focusing on the learning style of each individual student. Musical Chairs instructors coordinate seamlessly with after school enrichment so children can have their music lessons while still at school. This includes separate beginner and intermediate string orchestra after-school classes as well as a variety of private and small group lessons.

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Old Town School of Folk Music

The Old Town School of Folk Music teaches and celebrates music and cultural expressions rooted in the traditions of diverse American and global communities. Founded in 1957, the Old Town School of Folk Music provides a wide range of music, dance, theater, and visual arts courses to people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds. Whatever one's interest, the Old Town School provides broad access to more than 700 accredited class offerings, private lessons, and workshops that span an array of artistic genres. Here at McPherson, Old Town School provides capoeira and drum classes to our intermediate grade learners.

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Springboard

Springboard believes that family-educator collaboration is the most joyful, culturally affirming, and cost-effective way to give kids access to high-quality instructional time. Their vision for systemic impact is to make parent-teacher collaboration standard practice in American education. We envision a school system in which families and educators work together—rather than in isolation—to accelerate student learning.

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Success Bound

Success Bound aims to redesign the middle school experience to include explicit goals and skill-oriented student preparation for high school and beyond. The program emphasizes changes in school-wide conditions for learning and adult support for student transitions across the whole school community. This is done by placing greater value on counseling during the middle school years, strong adult-student relationships, and a collaborative approach to instruction between counselors and teachers. Success Bound addresses these core factors by equipping school staff with resources to set students on a path of success.

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Trellus

Trullus has deep roots in refugee and immigrant communities. Forty-five years ago, a remarkable group of men from Cambodia responded to the plight of those escaping internment camps in Vietnam and arriving in Chicago. Their work established the foundation of what would become Asian Human Services and later Trellus. Since then, we’ve expanded our reach to support families arriving in the US from all over the world. We remain clear on our mission to remove barriers and provide supports that ensure opportunities for life.

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Youth Guidance: Becoming a Man (BAM)

Youth Guidance’s Becoming A Man® program (BAM®) is a school-based group counseling program that guides young men in 7-12th grades to learn, internalize and practice social cognitive skills, make responsible decisions for their future and become positive members of their school and community. BAM integrates clinical theory and practice, men’s rites of passage work, and a dynamic approach to youth engagement.

Learn about BAM