Hear directly from our local teams about how Trio has supported them, from training to shared learning and beyond.
Trio helps communities launch their own local college success partner sites.
We provide full incubation support to help sites launch successfully into the Trio Network through a five-step process.
Trio introduces the site concept to civic and community leaders, K-12 and opportunity youth providers and regional funders in prioritized locales. Trio proceeds if suitable local champions emerge with interest in bringing a site to their community. Local champions and allies form a local Advisory Board to help steer the site.
Together with local partners, Trio recruits a Fellow to lead the potential site. We seek authentic, deeply-rooted emerging local leaders with a passion for the mission.
Trio conducts the Fellows' training program and provides materials for new college success partner sites.
Fellows also attend an in-person residency at Duet, our partner organization in Boston. Duet coaches and staff instruct our Fellows on best practices and invite them to shadow live coaching sessions.
Trio works with the Fellow and local partners to develop the launch plan, including:
Once new sites are launched, Trio works with the Executive Director & local advisory board to set and achieve targets for quality, scale, & sustainability. The Fellow becomes the site Executive Director, reporting to Trio & the local advisory board.
Trio’s national operations group provides HR, budgeting, fundraising, branding, and recruiting support to ensure experience and efficiency at launch. Trio maintains the national Network of sites to facilitate shared success among Fellows.
The journey with Trio doesn’t end after incubation. Once launched, sites continue to benefit from ongoing, day-to-day support and thought partnership from Trio's Network operations team. This includes support with and oversight on HR, finance systems, budgeting, fundraising, branding, and recruiting.
While each community that sites operate in is unique, Trio believes in the power of collective knowledge. As an official part of the Trio Network, sites also gain access to valuable shared learnings and best practices across locations. The Network facilitates regular roundtable discussions on coaching practices and site leadership where teams get to discuss ideas, problem-solve, and learn about new initiatives or innovations across sites.
Disrupting an outdated system takes bold new thinking. In our Trio Labs division, we design and pilot new models for education with the potential to scale into high-impact pathways.
Trio Labs also brings the best of a high-performance, outcomes-driven ethos to our human-centered work. We fortify our sites’ work with data analytics. We continuously review our processes for areas to optimize our recruitment funnels, enrollment systems, coaching practices, and sustainability modeling.
“Paraprofessionals are getting another chance to earn their certificates at little or no cost”-- Philadelphia Inquirer
In Camden, the Trio-designed NJ Teacher Pathway program is helping current paraprofessionals, school staff, and aspiring educators earn their degree from SNHU The program then supports them through studying for and passing the exams required to earn a teaching license in the state of New Jersey.
Gateway U is proud to help Camden City School District and local charter networks build a sustainable, diverse talent pipeline and, in the process, support the career aspirations and economic mobility of dozens of aspiring educators.
The Teacher Pathway model delivers benefits to all stakeholders:
We’re part of a greater movement to reimagine college. Trio works to be a thought collaborator in the landscape of postsecondary innovators and community partnership sites. We help build the case for the field’s ideas with research, share insights from our own projects, and collaborate with our peers on how to have greater impact.
Check out some of our work:
In an independent study by the Harvard Graduate School of Education, an analysis of the “hybrid college” site model that Trio employs revealed groundbreaking student outcomes. A case study found that the model “had eliminated the opportunity gap between students of color and white students.”
Trio was a key collaborator in the research process.
Will you partner with us to reimagine higher education?
Contact us to learn more about partnering with Trio.
