2010: Overcoming Obstacles Meets with New York City Schools Chancellor

Posted: September 7, 2016

One third of all new businesses fail in their first two years. About half fail in their first five years. The failure rate for nonprofits is even greater. Twenty-five years after helping our first teachers and students in Los Angeles, Overcoming Obstacles is thriving! I couldn’t be more proud and there are so many memories that stand out. After the forging of our initial school partnership with Manual Arts High School in South Central Los Angeles in 1992, the next most memorable time in the history of our organization was our meeting with New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and his team.

In 2010, Overcoming Obstacles decided that the best way to achieve our goal of helping every school district, every school, every teacher, and every student in the nation would be to provide our curricula, training and support for free to everyone, everywhere. We had been charging fees for these things for years, and when we told the Chancellor and his team, they embraced our offer wholeheartedly. In fact, one of the meeting attendees was Vanda Belusic-Vollor who had been an Overcoming Obstacles teacher and principal and knew of the high quality of our program.

Throughout our long relationship with New York City Department of Education, over 1.5 million students have learned important life skills that have helped them work through their struggles, excel academically, graduate high school, and succeed in college and the workforce. And, as we begin the 2016-2017 school year, educators from over 600 of New York City’s 850 middle and high schools are implementing Overcoming Obstacles lessons. My hope for the new school year is this—that we help all of the additional schools bring life skills education to their students.

Jill Siegal Chalsty
Founder and Chairman