Welcome to our online space.
Welcome to our website! We aim to keep you up to date on our work in the community and any upcoming opportunities that serve you and your career needs.
The Parramore Education and Innovation District (PEID) was formally established in 2019, after nearly two years of planning, to assure that residents of economically challenged but historically proud downtown Orlando, Florida, neighborhoods have equitable access to quality education, and to the tools and processes for using education to advance economic mobility.
Parramore is a high-potential community facing a number of challenges rooted in segregation, deep-seated poverty, and low educational attainment. Located just west of downtown Orlando and encompassing an area of less than 1.5 square miles, Parramore is a long-standing African American community with a rich history. A vibrant epicenter of Black pride, culture, and business throughout the first half of the 20th century, today’s Parramore suffers from persistent poverty and urban decay.
This decline is, in part, attributed to social and urban development policies dating back to Jim Crow. The legacy of these decisions can be felt in obstacles to educational access and success, career opportunities, and upward mobility for residents. Still, Parramore and surrounding communities display palpable pride, resiliency, and collective commitment to progress.
PEID is a vehicle for connecting the Parramore neighborhood’s existing strengths with its newest assets, including the Orange County Public Schools Academic Center for Excellence PreK-8 school (OCPS ACE), the Rosen Preschool, and Boys and Girls Club that are adjacent to OCPS ACE, which all opened in the fall 2018. These are in addition to the UCF Downtown campus, which it shares with Valencia College Downtown, both of which opened in August 2019.
PEID was envisioned as a generation’s long effort, not a short-term silver bullet. Our commitment to Parramore and to our partners is lasting, and our work is just getting started. If you are interested in learning more about what we do and how we can serve you, sign up for our newsletter below and take a look around.
We will be updating the website with further resources and sending out a monthly newsletter with news, program updates, and upcoming events.