Notre Dame’s Global Center for the Development of the Whole Child Receives $1.5 Million Grant from W.K. Kellogg Foundation to Transform Education in Haiti
The Global Center for the Development of the Whole Child (GC-DWC), part of the Institute for Educational Initiatives (IEI) at the University of Notre Dame, has secured a $1.5 Million grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) to launch a two-year initiative transforming education in the Central Plateau of Haiti by embedding research, enhancing school readiness, and equipping local educators to improve outcomes for thousands of vulnerable children.
The initiative, titled “Investing for Impact in the Model School Network (MSN)”, runs from December 1, 2025, through November 30, 2027. It leverages the GC-DWC’s research expertise and in-country partnerships to extend and expand research on school and family programming, aiming to provide crucial evidence and learning to support the MSN’s goal of providing quality education at scale. The GC-DWC will partner with community members, including parish priests, parents, and teachers.
“This grant is a powerful validation of the MSN’s collective impact approach,” said Kate Schuenke-Lucien, GC-DWC Director for Haiti and Senior Associate Director for Strategic Planning. “It allows us to embed rigorous, evidence-based research directly into the classroom and home. We are not just creating programs; we are building a sustainable, data-driven system where Haitian children are prepared to thrive from preschool through primary grades.”
Research and Impact Goals:
The grant will fund a synergistic research program designed to address three critical challenges currently facing schools in the Central Plateau of Haiti: school readiness, validated assessments, and sustained implementation.
To address these issues, the grant will fund three distinct yet interconnected studies and a resource delivery component. Each study addresses a different facet of the school readiness ecosystem—from the classroom to the home and beyond—to build a more comprehensive and sustainable framework for child development and learning:
- SPARK (Strengthening Preschoolers' Academic and Relational Skills) Study: This study will evaluate a comprehensive intervention designed to improve both the foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) skills and the social-emotional learning (SEL) of preschool students. Its goal is to provide crucial insights into preparing children academically for primary school.
- HOPE (Home-based Outcomes for Preschool Engagement) Study: This research focuses on the critical role of caregivers in a child's early learning, evaluating a refined parent engagement initiative and examining its effects on caregivers' practices and, most importantly, on their children's school readiness.
- METRICS (Measures for Educational Testing, Readiness, and International Competency Standards) Study: Addressing the need for reliable and valid assessment tools, this study will psychometrically validate and align existing MSN primary grade assessments (grades 1-6) with global and national proficiency standards. This will empower teachers and administrators to make data-driven decisions.
In addition, the initiative will address the challenge of sustained implementation by supporting the purchase and distribution of all classroom materials for teachers and students in grades 1-4 in 40 Catholic MSN schools. Teachers in these 40 schools will also receive continuous coaching and support throughout the 2026-2027 school year.
Key Beneficiaries
Key anticipated results and beneficiaries include:
- Students: At least 5,000 students from MSN schools will benefit from academic enhancement programs, curriculum reform, and other initiatives.
- Educators: At least 200 teachers and school directors from the 40 schools will benefit from coaching support for the 2026-2027 school year.
- Knowledge Products: Three knowledge products will be created, corresponding to the SPARK, HOPE, and METRICS studies. Additionally, final versions of program materials will be shared for free download.
- Assessments: Revised and validated end-of-year assessments for grades 1-6.
Advancing Racial Equity
The GC-DWC’s decade-plus partnership in the MSN recognizes that changing outcomes in Haiti at scale requires investing in the local system and education providers that serve Haitian children. The project is working to advance racial equity and healing by empowering and sustaining the existing network of schools currently functioning in the Central Plateau and equipping them with tools to make decisions at the local level. The curricula used in MSN schools is also designed to foster Haitian students’ pride in their cultural heritage, with an emphasis on a mother tongue (Haitian Kreyòl) literacy program that addresses inequality based on historic linguistic exclusion.
“At the Kellogg Foundation, we believe that evidence-based, community-driven solutions are essential to building a brighter future for Haiti’s children,” said Alix Cantave, senior program officer at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. “This investment supports Haitian educators and families who are creating lasting change in their schools. By strengthening assessments, education and family engagement, we are helping ensure that children in the Central Plateau have the tools they need to succeed from their earliest years.”
About the Global Center for the Development of the Whole Child (GC-DWC)
The Global Center for the Development of the Whole Child (GC-DWC) at the Institute for Educational Initiatives at the University of Notre Dame collaborates with researchers and practitioners to ensure the well-being—physical, emotional, social, and cognitive—of children and adolescents in low-resource and conflict-affected settings. Established to serve as a coherent platform for the Institute for Educational Initiative’s growing portfolio of global child development and learning programs, the GC-DWC creates environments that foster resilience and encourage children and adolescents to thrive. Using an innovative Whole Child Development (WCD) approach tailored to context-specific needs, the GC-DWC translates research into timely and thoughtful action, adapts research tools to improve the development of learning programs and policies, and activates systems (families, schools, communities) to lift children and adolescents out of adversity.
Learn more about the GC-DWC’s work to transform child development globally: iei.nd.edu/gc-dwc
About the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF)
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF), founded in 1930 as an independent, private foundation by breakfast cereal innovator and entrepreneur Will Keith Kellogg, is among the largest philanthropic foundations in the United States. Guided by the belief that all children should have an equal opportunity to thrive, WKKF works with communities to create conditions for vulnerable children so they can realize their full potential in school, work and life.
The Kellogg Foundation is based in Battle Creek, Michigan, and works throughout the United States and internationally, as well as with sovereign tribes. Special attention is paid to priority places where there are high concentrations of poverty and where children face significant barriers to success. WKKF priority places in the U.S. are in Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico and New Orleans; and internationally, are in Mexico and Haiti. For more information, visit www.wkkf.org.
