Brief History of PGCEC, Inc

The Prince George’s County Education Coalition (PGCEC) Inc., a 501c3 organization established in 2011, by Abdul-Raheem Abdullah, for the purpose of assisting then Maryland State Senator Joanne C. Benson. Senator Benson had responsibilities for the 24th Legislative District in Prince George’s County, Maryland. PGCEC was established out of a public appeal for several years of neglected schools within the 24th Legislative District, whereby the children, and communities inside the Beltway felt snubbed. This public appeal stemmed from concerned citizens who were eager to make certain that transparency, accountability, and integrity within the Prince George’s County Public School system and particularly the schools within the Beltway would benefit. The citizens were also eager to make certain that transparency, accountability, and integrity within the Prince George’s County Public School system and particularly the schools within the Beltway would withstand.

Our mission is to organize and mobilize the Prince George’s County community to advocate for and support effective learning enhancement and development for the children attending public elementary schools located inside the Beltway within the 24th legislative district.

A Few Details Regarding our Program Purpose

PGCEC’s initial purpose was, without fail, to help raise the academic and personal bar for the low performing elementary schools located inside the Beltway within the 24th & 25th Legislative Districts. Our primary focus was to make children and their families whole. Over the years, we have been a valued partner to parents, children, and staff members within our partnering schools. PGCEC, has been an active participant with the Prince George’s County Public School System (PGCPS) since 2011. We encouraged parents to remain engaged in their children’s education and to stay engaged from elementary to college or by their chosen careers. This was mainly accomplished through providing meaningful and relevant programming for parents and their children. We were determined to improve the conditions through the services offered by us. We offered student advocation, mentoring, tutoring, student field trips, bully prevention among peers, parent engagement activities, community engagement, and general services to assist our partnering elementary school PTO’s and students. Those features were within our mission and incentive. The schools we focused on were all located within the 24th Legislative District inside the Beltway in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Each of our partnering schools were consistently performing at the lowest testing levels, they had inadequate parental support, and were surrounded with numerous known social factors – ranging from high crime communities, individuals amidst poor health, high foreclosures and minimal to no business, community, or religious support. We felt the need to lend a hand. With this as our focus, we integrated within those targeted schools. While the total number of needing scholars far exceeded our budget numbers, we began our services by soliciting funders to help 60 scholars and their parents that were referred to us by the partnering school principals. We partnered with Kumon of Lanham to help us tutor those 60 scholars who were deficient in reading, math, or both. We offered each of our partnering schools 20 slots for those needing scholars. We challenged the parents of those 60 scholars to be engaged in their children’s academic experiences or forfeit the opportunity. Helping scholars to become strong readers and fearless mathematicians would have fulfilled everyone’s bottom line. But our main objective was to help make these scholars and their families whole.