Jane F. Quinn
Jane Quinn, the vice president for community schools at the Children’s Aid in New York City and director of its National Center for Community Schools, is leaving her post and putting her nearly 50-year social work career on hold to pursue her lifelong professional goal of earning a doctorate degree. Considered to be one of the architects of the community schools movement, Quinn’s long and accomplished career includes work in research, direct service, philanthropy, program development and non-profit executive positions. It began after completing her undergraduate work at the College of New Rochelle in New York, where she earned a bachelor of arts in economics in 1966. She soon got a job as a caseworker at Catholic Charities and discovered her love of helping youth in need. This led to her applying to the University of Chicago’s School of Social Services Administration for her graduate degree. She would earn a master’s in social work and quickly get a job post-graduation as a caseworker once again, but at the Juvenile Protective Association of Chicago, assisting and investigating families accused of child maltreatment. Soon she would meet her husband, Terry, and move to Washington, D.C. with him in 1971.
In D.C. she got a job in social work at the District of Columbia Health Department. Her passion being in direct service, she would pass up numerous offers in administration to continue working closely with those in need. After nearly seven years working in this capacity, Ms. Quinn would move on to a position at the Center for Population Options (now Advocates for Youth), an organization focused on helping young people make informed decisions about reproductive and sexual health. While there she would work with numerous youth organizations to coordinate and develop educational programs on adolescent sexuality. This job would serve as a jumping-off point as she would be recruited by one of the organizations she worked with, Girls Clubs of America. Quinn would become its national program director, pushing her into the national arena.
Her first year in this position had her traveling the country, visiting sites that served low-income children in 38 states. Based on her experience and these travels, she would spearhead the launch of numerous programs, many of which still operate today. Some focused on getting young girls interested in STEM careers while others would help girls to pursue sports and recreational activities traditionally for boys. While at Girls Clubs of America, Quinn also served on a national commission led by the Carnegie Corporation of New York to determine the best reforms for middle grade education. Her specific focus while on this commission was the importance of outside-of-school learning. This focus would lead to a follow-up study and report titled “A Matter of Time: Risk and Opportunity in the Nonschool Hours”, which would become a nationally-recognized piece of research leading to numerous changes in afterschool and out-of-school time programs across the country.
Quinn’s next career move would take her to the Wallace Foundation where she served as its program director for about seven years. It was after this that she arrived at Children’s Aid in New York, overseeing more than 20 community schools and providing technical assistance to others outside her purview. The models developed under her leadership there would spread both domestically and internationally to hundreds of districts and thousands of schools. Quinn has directly or indirectly impacted the lives of millions of children across the world during her nearly-50 year career and now she is taking the time to finally complete her own education and pursue doctoral studies in urban education.
Quinn has been a regular contributor to Youth Today since 2000, writing more than 30 opinion pieces on several topics within her expertise. Her absence from the sector will be felt by everyone she has worked with throughout her long career. Quinn leaves Children’s Aid at the end of June 2018 and will take a short sabbatical over the summer before beginning her doctoral studies at the City University of New York. A national search for her successor at Children’s Aid is currently underway.
