About

Vision
To serve as an organization that is a clearinghouse of information and support for administrators and schools that want to offer quality, Christian education for at-risk youth.

Motto
Street Schools...the road to hope for at-risk kids

Need
Within just a few years of the formation of the Denver Street Schools in 1985, Mr. Tom Tillapaugh, DSS founder and administrator, began to receive calls from educators in other cities requesting help in starting like schools for troubled youth in their own metropolitan areas.

In an effort to have an organized response to an increasing nationwide need, Mr. Tillapaugh founded the National Association of Street Schools in 1996. NASS provides a clearinghouse of information and support for educators across the nation who wish to start schools for at-risk adolescents or desire help for their already existing interventionist model school.

There is clearly a crisis in urban education in our country. According to the Department of Education, there are 575 urban school districts in the United States that serve over 11 million children. Published reports state that children in urban schools by virtually every measure perform far worse than children outside urban centers. Furthermore, the longer the student stays in school, the wider the gap becomes.

In contrast, the Street School concept has over the past 17 years proven to be the answer that many urban students with a history of academic failure need. At Street Schools, they find small class sizes, personalized academic attention, a moral code by which to live their life and support services to assist them in being successful.