Our Members

NPEA Member Spotlight

Each month, we feature a current member in our Member Spotlight interview. The Member Spotlight enables us to share important information about the goals, challenges, and successes of NPEA members around the country.

Click on the NPEA member organizations/schools below to link to their spotlight interviews:

My Sister's Circle
CollegePossible™ (formerly Admission Possible)
Excel Academy Charter School Graduate Services Department
Uncommon Schools
College Board
Chicago Scholars
After-School All-Stars
WilsonDailyPrep
Rutgers Future Scholars
Boys' Club of New York
Cate School

April 2012 Member Spotlight: Teach For America
Interviewee: Stacey R. Thomas, Manager, National Alliances
Interviewer: Carrie Tate, NPEA Member Services Associate

Snapshot:
Date founded: 1990 - Charter Corps (500 recent college graduates)
Number of teachers currently serving with Teach for America: 5100 corps members from 50 states
Number of teachers to serve in 2012: 5400-5500
Length of time served by Teach for America teachers: Teach For America corps members have a two year commitment. About 2/3 of our alumni remain in some form of education after they complete their two year commitment.
Number of students served: In the 20 year history of the organization, nearly 33,000 corps members have reached more than three million children nationwide.
Number of communities in which Teach for America teachers work: 43 regions across the country. We have a specific goal to work in an additional five to seven regions by 2015.

Visit Teach For America on Facebook.

Q: Can you talk about the history and background of Teach For America?
A: In 1989, our CEO and founder, Wendy Kopp, examined educational inequity in her Princeton University undergraduate thesis statement. She had the idea of placing high-performing recent college graduates into classrooms in low-income communities, providing them with intensive training, and seeing what they could accomplish. With the support of the faculty and staff at Princeton, Wendy and her classmates began the grassroots process of creating Teach For America. Led by her vision, approximately 500 recent college graduates fueled the movement in its initial year, in an effort to begin eliminating educational inequity in this country.

To date, nearly 33,000 corps members have participated in the program. Many of them have continued their involvement in the field of education, whether by teaching, tackling reform, working in public policy, or taking on administrative roles within school districts. Among our alumni, we have principals, superintendents, and even some who have started their own schools. Our alumni have had an impact in this educational inequity movement, taking the lessons learned and experience gained from Teach for America into other walks of life.

Q: What is Teach for America’s mission and what are some of Teach for America’s core values?
A: We are working toward one day when every child, regardless of his/her economic status or zip code, will have equal education. Our mission is aligned closely with our core values.

One of our key core values is transformational change. When we think about transformational change, we think about expanding educational opportunities in ways that are life-changing for children. Whether it is transforming a classroom to get students acclimated to read at or above grade level by the end of the academic year, or implementing ground breaking initiatives to increase awareness of the educational inequity movement. Transformational change is not only exemplified in the classroom, but in all aspects of Teach For America’s work. Our goal is to continually operate with a transformational mindset. Given our deep belief in children and communities, the magnitude of educational inequity and its consequences, and our optimism about the solvability of the problem, we act with high standards, urgency, and a long-term view.

Our second core value is leadership, whether in the classroom, in the community, or in a staff position. Leadership at Teach for America means going above and beyond to get the job done. We operate with a sense of possibility and we persevere through challenges. Teach For America recruits and develops leaders to establish bold visions and take ownership of what we can control. Overall we strive to we strive to develop and become the leaders necessary to realize educational excellence and equity.

Our third core value is team. We realize that, while we have smart, powerful leaders in the classroom, in our alumni movement, and in the operational roles at Teach for America, we cannot do this work alone. We have to build internal and external teams that support each other in this challenging work. Partnerships with organizations like NPEA are critical to assist Teach For America’s mission and each of us ultimately closing the achievement gap. Internal partnerships are also crucial for the success of Teach for America and the success of our staff and corps members as individuals within this broader movement. Overall, we define team as the ability to maximize our collective impact, inspire, challenge, and support each other to be our best and sustain our effort.

Our fourth core value is diversity. Teach for America has identified diversity as something we look for people to exemplify in thought, background, and experience. About ten years ago, Teach For America was heavily run by alumni of our program who were former corps members. In 2012, 60% of Teach for America staff members are alumni of our program and were former corps members. The organization is continually making a concerted effort to recruit and support racially diverse corps members and staff through partnerships with diverse student and community-based organizations. Additionally, we know the achievement gap heavily impacts individuals from underrepresented groups including African American, Hispanic American, and Native American. Teach For America acts on our belief that the movement to ensure educational equity will succeed only if it is diverse in every respect.

Our final core value is respect and humility. We value the strengths, experiences, and perspectives of others, and we recognize our own limitations. We are committed to partnering effectively with families, schools, and communities to ensure that our work advances the broader good for all children. Corps members, alumni and staff are expected to demonstrate respect with fellow team members and across other teams, as well as demonstrate respect and humility for the families and communities we serve.

Teach For America staff performance reviews are aligned against these core values and are expected to demonstrate these values in our daily work. This is something by which our staff and corps members live.

Q: What are some of Teach for America’s primary goals?
A: Teach For America is a very data-driven organization and we have concrete goals as far as numbers are concerned. Our corps member growth is determined by the regions’ needs to place as many corps members in their placement schools. We need a certain number of corps members in classrooms in order to impact a certain number of students. By the 2015-2016 academic year, our goal is to have over 8,000 teachers teaching in classrooms around the country.

Q: Can you tell me about Teach for America’s “Now More Than Ever” campaign?
A: We created the Now More Than Ever campaign because we wanted to galvanize our country around the critical topic of ensuring educational opportunity for all students. This campaign showcases the inspirational voices of supporters across the country and their personal, individual responses to why, now more than ever, it’s important for us to take on this issue. Visit teachforamerica.org/now to hear from corps members, alumni, staff members, celebrities, and partners as they share their responses via videos, photos, 100-word stories, and tweets.

We are mobilizing staff, incoming corps members, and alumni and involving them in the discussion of what we can do better to increase awareness and inspire people to want to become a part of this movement.

Q: How are Teach For America teachers recruited and selected to serve with Teach for America?
A: Traditionally, Teach for America teachers are heavily recruited on college campuses. We have recruiting managers and associates working on nearly 300 college campuses across the country, engaging students in conversations about Teach for America and encouraging them to apply to the corps. Additionally, our recruiting managers host a variety of events for underclassmen to build awareness and develop them professionally. The organization was rooted in this strategy, through grassroots campus recruiting, one-on-one meetings with student leaders, presentations with campus groups, career and education fairs, and face-to-face interactions with students.

We also have a professional recruiting team focused on engaging individuals who have graduated from college and/or have some professional work experience. This team works with various professional organizations and corporate partners to identify prospective corps members who are interested in a career transition or involved in education in some other capacity and want to teach.

Corps member candidates go through several stages of the selection process which includes completing an online application, writing a letter of intent and other web-based and in-person activities.

We select corps members based on leadership potential and other traits that distinguish our most successful teachers. Over the last 20 years, we’ve learned that it isn’t a specific personality type or background that helps predict success in the classroom. What you’ll find among our most effective corps members is a pattern of excelling with any work they prioritize. Teach For America seeks candidates with demonstrated past leadership and achievement: achieving ambitious, measurable results in academic, professional, extracurricular, or volunteer settings.

Each year, Teach For America receives applications from many outstanding individuals seeking to join our corps. Our applicants’ talent and commitment is inspiring, and regardless of whether an applicant is accepted to Teach For America, we encourage every individual to join in the important work of expanding opportunity for students in low-income communities.

Q: What initial and ongoing training, support, and professional development do you provide for Teach for America corps members?
A: All incoming corps members participate in a training institute at one of nine locations across the country where they participate in a five-week intensive training. They learn about classroom management, curriculum development, lesson planning, and various facets of teaching. Our institutes are led by Teach for America staff as well as external partners.

Each region is responsible for the development of corps members within their region. In St. Louis, for example, there are about 150 corps members placed throughout the area and the regional office is responsible for guaranteeing the success of those corps members. Managers of teaching and leadership development are assigned to different corps members, based upon either the subject matter or grade level corps members teach (this process can vary for each region). Those managers are responsible for classroom visits, observations, and overall feedback. Corps members also participate in professional development activities to learn new strategies for engaging students or reviewing curriculum. Every region requires their corps members to attend a certain number of development sessions, in order to ensure ongoing learning and support for corps members. These trainings are pretty hands-on but look different in every region.

Q: How are Teach for America staff members recruited and selected?
A: Staff members come to Teach for America from within and outside of the organization. Currently, about 30-40% of staff are not former corps members. We do have many corps member alumni on staff who completed two or more years in the classroom and later applied for a staff position. Teach For America’s staff recruitment process is fairly traditional and aligned with other organizations. Candidates apply online and participate in an interview process.

Q: Can you talk about other unique initiatives of Teach for America?
A: Teach For All is the network of independent nonprofit organizations that apply Teach For America's approach on a global scale. Just as Teach For America places top college graduates and professionals into low-income communities throughout America, Teach For All organizations place their nations' most promising future leaders as teachers in high-need classrooms around the world.

Q: Why did Teach for America join NPEA?
A: Teach For America became an NPEA member because we recognize the value of partnerships. We understand that we will not be able to close the achievement gap and impact change for our children in low income communities without strategic partnership with like-minded organizations. NPEA offers a multitude of valuable resources and relationships that TFA can utilize to continue to build awareness and join forces to end educational inequity.

 

March 2012 Member Spotlight: MY SISTER'S CIRCLE (MD)
Interviewees: Heather Harvison, Founder and Executive Director and Blair White, Director of College Counseling
Interviewer: Carrie Tate, NPEA Member Services Associate

SNAPSHOT:
Date founded: 2000 – pilot; 2001 - non-profit 501(c)3 status
Number of students served: 120
Grades served: 5th through college
Percentage of students of minority background: 100%
Percentage of students admitted to 4-year colleges: 100%
Percentage of students who persist and graduate from college: Our first cohort will graduate from college this year.
My Sister’s Circle in the news: http://www.mysisterscircle.org/press/
Questions? Contact Heather Harvison.

Q: What is the mission/vision and what are some of the primary goals of My Sister’s Circle? How has the organization evolved and changed since its founding?
A: Mission: My Sister's Circle, Inc. (MSC) is a comprehensive relationship-based program designed to mentor girls from disadvantaged Baltimore neighborhoods during their challenging transition to middle school, throughout high school, and into college.

MSC helps to positively transform the lives of our "sisters" during the critical years of middle and high school by: matching each girl with a highly qualified volunteer mentor; organizing cultural, educational and recreational events and trips; soliciting summer camp scholarships; referring students to leadership programs and internships; working with the girls and their families throughout the challenging middle and high school selection process; and connecting students with MSC's Director of College Counseling for college guidance and support. This is how, for almost a decade, MSC has successfully overcome the circumstances that often threaten progress and promise.

As a grassroots founder, it has been truly inspiring to watch MSC evolve into a thriving, well-respected nonprofit that has been nationally recognized for mentoring girls and guiding them into college. With a final measureable outcome of getting our girls into college, I have made all of my hiring and Board recruitment decisions in alignment with that goal. We invested in our infrastructure and developed a small, but highly effective, team of staff, and we have a strong group of leaders serving on our Board. The mentor commitment has also evolved over time, reinforcing the importance of consistency with mentors. With our original fifth graders about to graduate from college, our program has come full circle, and this has helped us gain support from funders. These girls are also finding unique ways to give back to My Sister’s Circle, by volunteering to chaperone college tours, talking to our current girls about their experiences and challenges, and hosting shadow days at their colleges. It inspires me to celebrate the successes of these girls and hear how another person, an organization, a resource, and a community changed the direction of their lives.

Q: Who does My Sister’s Circle serve and how are students selected for the program?
A: MSC was created in response to a request from Irma Johnson, former principal of Dallas F. Nicholas Elementary School in Baltimore, who witnessed some of her most promising fifth grade girls fall through the cracks as they made the transition into middle school and throughout high school. Lacking guidance, these girls were prey to traditional urban risk factors including teen pregnancy, dropping out of school, drug use, incarceration and violence. While the transition to middle school presents a universal risk for all youth, these girls are particularly vulnerable during this transition because they are going relatively unnoticed and/or do not have the resources to help them excel. This is a group of girls that really could and should be going to college but are not. There is a disconnect somewhere that is preventing them from reaching their potential. MSC intentionally targets girls starting in fifth grade to bolster their strong sense of self and feelings of independence and control--key developmental tasks in moving successfully from middle childhood to adolescence.

These young women struggle to succeed because of varying family and community risk factors, such as incarceration, separation or divorce, family history of substance abuse or domestic violence, death of a family member or guardian, and financial hardship. They live in urban, inner-city neighborhoods characterized by high levels of poverty and crime as well as low levels of educational attainment and employment. We found statistically that girls graduating from pre-K-5 have the poorest trajectory. Consequently, all MSC students are selected by their principals and teachers prior to fifth grade at one of MSC's Title One partner elementary schools in Baltimore City, where 98% or more of students qualify for free or reduced breakfast and lunch subsidies, indicating that they come from families at or below the poverty level. Since its inception in 2000, the program has grown to serve 120 girls enrolled in approximately 50 middle and high schools as well as colleges and universities. This total will increase to 135-140 participants with the addition of new fifth graders again this fall.

Q: What are the various components of the program model at My Sister’s Circle? What services do you provide for the girls you serve during the academic year and over the summer?
A: MSC’s overall goal is to increase the likelihood of college attendance and graduation among young women living in disadvantaged neighborhoods and from families facing one or more significant stressors. A guiding principle of MSC is to assess and respond to the individual needs of each youth. This means that the strategies we use in serving our students vary somewhat to accommodate the specific needs of each girl and her family. At the same time, there are several strategies that define the MSC approach, summarized below:

1. Weekly after-school program for fifth grade girls. This is a student’s first experience with MSC. The program focuses on building girls’ academic, leadership, and relationship skills before their transition to middle school. MSC also uses this time to get to know the girls academically, socially, and emotionally, so we can pair them strategically with an appropriate mentor.
2. Multi-year mentoring relationships. All participants are matched with an adult mentor in their sixth grade year during a home visit with the Program Director, and this relationship continues through the middle and high school years.
3. Monthly half-day activities. These activities vary but include exposure to local cultural, skill-based, educational, recreational, and community offerings.
4. School Placement. By guiding students and their families through the school selection process, MSC ensures that each participant is in the best educational setting given her circumstances and needs.
5. Summer Camp Placement. MSC wants participants involved in positive and structured activities during the summer. In doing so, MSC works with each girl to select appropriate summer camps and activities and then helps connect youth and their families to these resources.
6. Career Exploration. MSC identifies and recommends students for career-focused workshops and fellowships, such as the Institute of International Public Policy Fellowship and Urban Journalism Workshop. MSC also arranges shadow days and internships with professionals in the community, in addition to hosting various career panels.
7. Leadership Opportunities. MSC connects students with leadership opportunities and programs, such as the GBA Leadership Institute and the Rotary Youth Leadership Association.
8. College Placement. MSC's own Director of College Counseling provides individualized college counseling services for those preparing for college and those attending college.
9. Connecting Resources. When necessary, MSC helps participants' families tap into existing resources and navigate systems.

Q: For the mentoring component of your programming, who serves as MSC mentors and how are they selected?
A: A defining feature of MSC is that we require a seven-year commitment from our mentors. Based on research regarding the importance of the mentor/mentee relationship by Jean Rhodes and David DuBois, as well as MSC’s knowledge regarding the loss, chaos, and inconsistency that most of its participants have experienced repeatedly in their lives, MSC emphasizes the importance of consistency and commitment from mentors. MSC has seen that it can be detrimental if a mentor enters into a girl’s life for less than a year.

MSC focuses on selecting an ethnically diverse group of mentors. Current MSC mentors are approximately 50% Caucasian, 40% African American, and 10% other (including Asian, Indian, and Vietnamese). Because of MSC’s emphasis on providing social capital to youth and expanding their social networks, MSC seeks high-caliber, quality mentors representing a variety of professions. MSC mentors include lawyers, lobbyists, and doctors. Specific roles held by MSC mentors include public relations account executive for a women-owned public relations firm, director of tax constellation energy resources, English professor at University of MD College Park, director of religious and ethnic diversity at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), director of multicultural affairs at Garrison Forest School, analyst in Foreign Affairs with the Library of Congress/Congressional Research Service, and owner/CEO of Home Helpers. MSC mentors live in Baltimore, Hartford, and Howard and Anne Arundel counties.

Q: How do you engage and support parents/families through My Sister’s Circle?
A: The level of engagement of our parents varies from one family to the next. Some of our parents are really invested and actively involved in our program. Other parents work many hours, or more than one job, and may not have the opportunity to advocate for their daughters and engage with My Sister’s Circle quite as much.

Whenever possible, we include parents with the mentors and mentees in various workshops and events. We are very much relationship-based, so the parents tend to be more responsive and understanding of our philosophy: it takes a village. They want to work together with us in most cases. We try to engage and involve parents and invite them to take on bigger roles with the organization where the opportunities exist.

Q: How do you engage and support your mentors throughout their involvement with My Sister’s Circle?
A: If we want to keep our mentors, we have to continue to train and support them, because as meaningful as the mentoring relationships are, the commitment can be challenging at times. We hold a new mentor orientation, during which we share some of the research that illustrates the importance of the longer-term mentoring commitment. We also hold quarterly mentor-only sessions, during which we provide resources, gather feedback, and hold cultural conversations and forums.

My Sister's Circle now has our own Diversity Consultant. Lisa Gray, a long-time mentor and volunteer, offered to serve in this new role. Lisa is available to mentors by phone or in person to help mentors tackle sensitive issues, including:

• Cross Cultural Boundaries
• Cultural Values and World Views
• Educational and Socio-Economic Differences
• Communication and Interaction with Mentees

MSC staff is always available to mentors for ongoing support, guidance, resources, and referrals.

Q: What partnerships have you created with programs, community organizations, schools, or colleges/universities?
A: One of MSC's greatest strengths is partnering with numerous organizations within the community. Some recent nonprofit partners include: the Alliance of Black Women Attorneys of Maryland, Operation Hope, Art with A Heart, Center Stage, Students' Sharing Coalition, Bridges, Business Volunteers Unlimited, the Maryland Mentoring Partnership, the National Mentoring Partnership, as well as numerous churches, camps and schools. In addition, MSC continues to effectively build connections through our many volunteers, their workplaces, and their professional networks.

Q: How have you benefited from membership in NPEA?
A: Through our membership in NPEA, we took advantage of the NPEA member benefit to offer our 11th graders free online SAT prep services from WilsonDailyPrep. Our Director of College Counseling will attend NPEA’s 2012 conference in April and is looking forward to networking and tapping into the numerous resources NPEA has to offer. Our Director of College Counseling also regularly uses NPEA Connect and alerts our staff to important research and professional development opportunities that are relevant to MSC.

 

February 2012 Member Spotlight: College Possible™ (formerly Admission Possible) - Saint Paul, MN
Interviewees: Emily Jacobs, Communications Manager and Traci Kirtley, Director of Programming and Evaluation

Snapshot:
Date founded: 2000
Number of Staff: 35 full-time staff across all sites, including the national office
Total number of students served annually: nearly 8700 [1900 11th and 12th grade students in the core high school program, 3200 students in the college program, and 3500 9th and 10th grade students served by college planning workshops]
Percentage of students of minority background: 91%
Percentage of students admitted to college: 98%
Percentage of students who persist and graduate from college: Nearly 80%
Other interesting/notable facts: College Possible more than doubles the chances a low-income student will enroll in a four-year institution. A 2011 Harvard study compared College Possible students to very similar students from the same high schools who did not participate in the program.
Questions? Email Traci Kirtley, Director of Programming and Evaluation, or contact her by phone at (651) 917-3525.

College Possible in the news:
• Watch College Possible’s 2011 Mutual of America Community Partnership Award video.
• Education Week featured College Possible (formerly Admission Possible) as one program making an impact on low-income students.

Q: What is the mission/vision and what are some of the primary goals of College Possible?
College Possible envisions a day when the future of America’s children is determined solely by their potential and effort. The College Possible model, designed to help low-income students obtain a college education, helps reduce the achievement gap that persists today along socioeconomic lines and acts as a multi-generational barrier to prosperity for families in poverty. By creating a pipeline of qualified students for colleges and universities and providing support through graduation, College Possible also helps provide the future leaders and college educated workers needed by the United States in a globally competitive economy.

College Possible’s mission is to make college admission and success possible for low-income students through an intensive curriculum of coaching and support. As the first organization in the country to leverage the AmeriCorps national service model for college success, we are able to provide the intensive intervention required in helping low-income students overcome significant barriers to a college education at impressive cost-efficiency allowing for rapid scaling.

Q: Can you tell me more about the recent name change from Admission Possible to College Possible? How has the program evolved and changed over time, and what are the organization’s plans for growth?
College Possible has grown nearly 250-fold since our founding from a pilot program of 35 students to serving nearly 8,700 low-income young people annually. The organization has successfully replicated programming in 29 high schools in three metro areas, with college program services now reaching students enrolled at 200 college campuses nationwide. Our growth plan calls for us to reach 20,000 students annually in 10 markets across the country by as early as 2015, and certainly by 2020.

It was this growth that led us to our recent name change. In 2000, when founder Jim McCorkell launched Admission Possible from the bedroom of his apartment with the help of his wife and friends, the work of changing lives was focused entirely on helping low-income students access college. As the organization grew, so did our focus and programming in support of students once they were in college. We knew we had the expertise to see them through to the ultimate goal – a degree.

As our program continued to build a successful track record of replication we knew we needed a national expansion strategy to help this program reach more students, and with that, we also knew it was time for a new name. Becoming College Possible not only better recognizes our work in both college access and success, it is also a name we are now trademarking to ensure our single 501c3 organization will be able to grow into any community where we are needed, under the name that symbolizes our vision that when college is possible, anything is possible!

Q: Who does College Possible serve? How are students selected for the program?
The College Possible model targets low-income high school students in the ‘academic middle’ who have the potential for college but who would be unlikely to succeed without significant support. We are currently working in 29 schools in total – 19 in the Twin Cities, eight in Milwaukee, and two in Omaha. Program eligibility requirements are:

1. High school sophomore. Students apply as sophomores and enter the two-year program as juniors.
2. Low-income. This is determined by median household income in city/county and by free and reduced lunch eligibility.
3. GPA of 2.0 or above. This is a guideline. Some students may be accepted with a lower GPA.
4. Application and interview. Completing this process provides reviewers with additional family background, academic preparation and aspirational information about the students.

Students currently in the College Possible program have an average family household income of less than $25,000.

Q: Can you tell me about the various phases and program components of College Possible’s high school and college programs?
High School program:
College Possible’s core programming is delivered during the students’ junior and senior years of high school by recent college graduates serving as full-time, near-peer mentors and AmeriCorps members. The comprehensive two-year, after-school curriculum includes academic support through SAT and ACT test preparation services, college admissions and financial aid consulting, and guidance in the transition to college. Students meet after school with their coach for two-hour sessions twice weekly in small groups of 10-15. Coaches are AmeriCorps members, typically recent college graduates, who serve one to two-year terms of service with College Possible. The cohort size and consistent meeting schedule allow students to build a peer group of support. Throughout the course of the program, students spend 320 hours of time on task, working through a copyrighted curriculum that covers topics addressing the academic, financial, psychological and informational gaps that are key barriers for low-income students.

1. Building a foundation- Students learn about the benefits of college and its accessibility to them, breaking down psychological barriers to college pursuit often found in students from low-income, first-generation backgrounds.
2. Providing academic support- Each coach provides individual and group academic support, including English, math, science, reading, and writing support needed to help students master crucial knowledge and skills that are important not only for score increases on the ACT exam, but also for preparedness for the rigor of college-level courses.
3. Preparing for the test- Most of the junior year is spent on intensive ACT test preparation and reinforcing academic content knowledge, including four full-length practice exams prior to the official exam administered in April.
4. Selecting target schools- In their senior year, students receive individual support in finalizing a list of schools with which to begin the college admissions process. Research shows that low-income students tend to select colleges not rigorous enough for their academic abilities.
5. Preparing applications- Most of the senior year is spent preparing college applications. This includes helping students prepare essays and working with teachers to write reference letters.
6. Consulting on financial aid- Each student is given intensive support identifying and applying for a wide range of financial aid, including extensive scholarship searches.
7. Guidance in transition to college – Senior year, students learn about reading financial aid packages, balancing a budget, managing time, and navigating campus resources.

College planning workshops for underclassmen:
College planning workshops are delivered to 9th and 10th grade students by high school seniors supported by their AmeriCorps coaches. These workshops leverage the near-peer mentorship model to encourage early planning school-wide in partner high schools and help create a college going culture across the school. College planning workshops for sophomores are tied to College Possible information sessions during student recruitment season. Workshops also provide a key leadership development opportunity for seniors in the program.

College program:
Upon completion of the high school program, students become part of College Possible’s college program, which employs a similar, but less intensive coaching model to help ensure college retention and graduation of College Possible students. College coaches utilize a structured curriculum to focus on academic, financial and cultural factors that research has identified as barriers to college success for low-income students. Coaches work to connect students to their campus resources, to each other, and to potential employers in order to help build a network that will support them as they make the difficult transition from high school to college and beyond. Helping students on college campuses nationwide, college coaches also provide targeted troubleshooting using Web 2.0 tools, one-on-one assistance (in person and by phone), group workshops and on-campus support. The college program works with students for up to six years, or longer if they are continuing to actively pursue their degree.

Q: What partnerships and/or collaborations has College Possible developed with other college access programs, organizations, national associations, or schools to further the organization’s work?
College Possible’s core high school program is school-based. We work closely with our partner high schools who provide College Possible coaches office and classroom space after school in which to conduct lessons. We have program coordinators who work with two to four schools, depending on the size of the program and the school. They are full-time staff assigned to oversee the AmeriCorps members and maintain long-term relationships with the school while the Corps members serve just one-year terms. Principals, teachers and counselors at partner schools support the program by referring eligible students and helping to reinforce a college-going culture within the school. In return, College Possible’s services are provided at no cost to the school.

College Possible’s relationship with AmeriCorps is vital to the way we operate. AmeriCorps attracts energetic, idealistic young people who are committed to changing the world and making their community a better place. Their enthusiasm is a key part of what makes this model work. The fact that they are close in age to the students also makes them effective because the students find them believable. Approximately 85 AmeriCorps members serve with College Possible this year through AmeriCorps State, National Direct, and VISTA, and this number is growing annually.

Within a school site, we work closely with fellow service providers to ensure no duplication of services to maximize impact for students. We are members of state and national college access and success networks including NPEA, NCAN, NACAC, as well as several national coalitions working to educate elected officials and the public on issues of concern such as support for national service and social innovation as key solutions to so many of our nation’s challenges. Those include Voices of National Service, ServiceNation and America Forward.

Q: How does College Possible evaluate and measure success? Can you talk about the recent 2011 Harvard comparative study featuring Admission Possible?
College Possible is committed to both internal and external evaluation of its efforts and has systems in place for closely monitoring programmatic outcomes in real-time. All students have a unique record for tracking in the web-based student database Naviance. Coaches for both high school and college students store all programmatic data there, including ACT scores, college and scholarship applications and acceptances, and college enrollment data. We pull reports weekly to evaluate current results against historically-informed organization benchmarks for these outcomes. Results are shared through team meetings and with senior management, allowing for immediate intervention where needed as well as best practice sharing.

A 2011 Harvard study by Dr. Christopher Avery found that College Possible has a clear impact on enrollment. Dr. Avery analyzed historical data comparing College Possible students with peers who did not participate in the program, and found that students participating in College Possible are 140% more likely to attend a four-year college than their peers (see the student here: http://www.CollegePossible.org/Reports.html). To provide further evidence of the effectiveness of the College Possible model, the organization has launched a two-year study with Dr. Avery, funded by the Spencer Foundation. This randomized controlled trial, considered the “gold standard” of techniques, will follow two groups of students: one participating in the program and a similar group that will not. The results of this study will be available in 2013.

Q: How have you benefited from being a member of NPEA?
Regular communications about developments in the field and the impressive work of fellow providers is of enormous value to us and our commitment to continuous improvement of our program. We are not a large enough organization to be able to expend significant resources in this way and having access to the conferences, member organizations, and other tools is something we have valued since becoming an NPEA member organization. It also provides us with an outlet for what we continue to learn about trends in our own programs and the research-validated techniques that are working.

 

December 2011 Member Spotlight: Excel Academy Charter School - Graduate Services Department, East Boston, MA
Interviewee: Laura Goldworm, Dean of Graduate Services
Interviewer: Carrie Tate, NPEA Member Services Associate

Snapshot:
Year school was founded: 2003
Number of students served: 211
Grades served: 5-8
Alumni served: 322 in grades 9 through post-secondary; oldest students are currently sophomores in college
% low-income: 75% qualify for free and reduced lunch
% minority: 73% Latino/Latina, 6% Black, 4% Asian

Read about Excel Academy Charter Schools' CEO, Dai Ellis, in the Boston Business Journal.

Q: From where does Excel draw its students, and how manystudents do you serve?
A: As a charter school, Excel Academy admits students through a lottery. We have two separate drawings conducted publicly by non-school-affiliated individuals. Our students come from around the Boston area, but preference is given to students from East Boston and Chelsea, as well as siblings of current students.

Our application numbers have increased over the past few years as a result of our success. In order to ensure we are meeting our target populations, we do a lot of outreach to students that do not have other educational avenues or opportunities, have fewer resources, and/or have less advocacy on their behalf. Every year, our staff, faculty, and cohorts of parents from the communities we serve work with local housing developments and knock on doors of businesses and homes in East Boston and Chelsea to distribute applications and flyers, in both English and Spanish, as well as to answer questions about the school. These efforts are to ensure that our student body is demographically representative of the community we serve, which has a high percentage of English language learners and low-income families. As a school, we focus on outreach to students and families we think can benefit the most from our school, its programs and interventions.

We have room for 56 fifth graders in East Boston and 56 in Chelsea. Our attrition is one of the lowest of all charter schools in the area, at only 2% every year. We have a lottery in sixth and seventh grade to backfill any open seats, but that only amounts to about two or three spots each year.

Q: How has Excel evolved over time and what are the school’s plans for growth?
A: Our original location is in a stripmall in East Boston. We opened up a second school in Chelsea this year, starting with a new class of fifth graders. We have secured charters and plans are underway for a third school in the Boston area serving students in grades 5-12, which we are hoping to roll out in the fall of 2012. Read more about this here. We are also in the process of developing a network team to oversee the administration, collaboration, human resources, and management of all of the Excel Academy schools.

Q: What sets Excel Academy apart?
A: There are many stories of success we are proud of at Excel. For example, all students at Excel have taken and passed the MCAS in all three subject areas. But even more, our students lead the state in seventh grade Math and eighth grade English, with 100% of our eighth grade students scoring advanced or proficient in English, and 96% of our eighth graders scoring advanced or proficient in Math. Read more about Excel's success in the news.

We are really proud of the work and accomplishments of our students and staff, especially when you consider the breakdown of our students in terms of low-income, urban, students of color, ELL, and special education. So much has been accomplished, and there has been quite a bit of evolution since we opened the school’s doors in 2003. We are now in a place where we have a program model that works and have really found our stride. Still, we are constantly changing, tweaking, pushing, and innovating. Our focus has shifted slightly to be less about startup and more about creating an excellent, sustainable program.

Excel Academy is the only school I have worked in where the focus literally is 100% on teachers teaching students and students learning. Everything that happens within the school is meant to support and improve that focus. In many organizations, the mission statement is a paper on the wall, but at Excel, the mission statement is really our way of life.

Q: How and why do you think that is?
A: There are a number of reasons. When we bring in new staff or faculty, we make sure they are 100% mission-aligned, bought into articulated norms, and have a track record of success. These individuals are really thoughtful in what they are doing and why they are doing it. The staff culture within the school really lends itself to success as well. Our leadership teams have worked tirelessly on our culture over the last couple years to ensure it is one of innovation, collaboration, respect, and focus on the students.

Excel takes an approach of really believing that great teachers come from a wealth of experience and are constantly improving their craft. As a school and within the network, Excel is committed to keeping experienced teachers and pushing them to become master teachers. We recently honored the 1/3 of staff who have been here for 5+ years because we believe the longer we do this work, the better we get.

In order to work effectively with students and families, they need to know and trust you. It is difficult to build momentum and relationships with frequent turnover, so we work hard at making this a place where teachers can and want to remain, grow, and flourish throughout their career as educators.

Q: Can you talk more about the role of the Graduate Services Department at Excel?
A: Our department is made up of four staff members. The Director of High School Placement works with students and families from the fourth quarter of the students’ seventh grade year through the end of eighth grade, focusing on the high school placement process, educating families about various secondary school options and supporting them through the logistics of applications, test-taking, and school visits, with a goal of finding the best possible high school fit for each student after Excel. We strive for all of our students to matriculate to college prep high schools. We consider college prep high schools to be schools that send 80% or more of their students to college after graduation.

Within our Graduate Services 9th-12th program, we have two staff members working to support students to and through high school and college matriculation. This includes helping students and families with everything from the transition to high school through college counseling. I work with all students placed at public and charter schools and my colleague works with students at tuition-based schools. We each work with about 100 students, ensuring they stay in school and have the supports they need to be successful, including visiting students at their schools twice per year, tracking grades, ensuring parent involvement, planning social events, and providing college counseling.

Our Director of Post-Secondary Support works with all of our high school graduates, assisting them in developing a productive post-secondary plan. She provides a lot of the same services we offer at the high school level, but at the college level. She focuses on building relationships with colleges, visiting students on campus, and helping to support and keep students engaged with us throughout their post-secondary experiences.

Though our goal is to focus on college and degree attainment, we are also supportive and respectful of students for whom a different path is going to be the most successful. Our mission and agenda is college, but we serve everyone who walks through our doors.

Q: What are some of the specific services you provide for students before and after graduating from Excel?
A: One of the ways we work with students is by building relationships with guidance counselors and school advisors to help families plug into their supports and use the various resources available to them. We visit all high schools twice per year to collect grades, stay in touch with teachers, and hold one-on-one meetings with students. We offer a full suite of college counseling services, depending on what offerings are in place at each student’s school. It is important to us to connect families with resources at their schools and then fill in the gaps as needed. Students are far more successful when they are engaged and connected at their school, so first and foremost, we help make those connections.

Some of the college preparation and outreach services we offer include: college visits, monthly newsletters for students, quarterly newsletters for families on how to best support students, social events and outings, an annual alumni/staff basketball tournament, reunions, financial aid workshops, a FAFSA-completion day, tutoring and support, and career seminars.

We begin working with students in eighth grade in our Freshman Academy. Through the Freshman Academy, we create early college awareness and prepare students for high school. At Excel, we encourage early college knowledge in our fifth grade classrooms, by naming our rooms after the schools our alumni are currently attending, and by setting up alumni visits and pen pal relationships between the younger students and college students.

Q: What strategies do you utilize to keep students engaged once they have graduated from Excel?
A: All of the work we do relies upon students and families engaging with us and wanting to take advantage of our services. We hold regular events for our alumni and stay in touch with them by regularly calling, visiting, or interacting with them via email, text messages, Facebook, or other forms of social media. We invite students to come back and visit us, tutor younger students, and/or earn community service hours. We provide a variety of opportunities to help students reconnect and make this a place where they feel they can always come back, check in, and visit their former teachers.

Student engagement is the bedrock upon which we build our program. Students need to know and trust we are there to support them. Some 94% of our alumni are currently engaged in our Graduate Services Program, so the outreach we have been doing is working. Our goal this year is to have 100% of our alums engaged with our program. We are doing everything we can to track our students down, reach out to them, and help them stay connected.

Q: What does the Graduate Services Department do to engage and support families?
A: We are really looking to build out that component of our program this year. We offer different events for families when students are at the end of their eighth grade year, to educate and inform them about who we are, what we do, and how we can help. We also hold various events about the college process for students and families.

One way we have engaged parents of our alumni is by asking them to serve as resources for other parents. We send out a quarterly newsletter to parents with tips on supporting students through the college process, handling report cards, and supporting students through transitions. We invite families to participate in college meetings so they have an opportunity to listen, ask questions, and get involved.

The more we do this work, the more we realize we need a licensed social worker on our staff to help families with various challenges they are facing. We would really like to build out a parent-support group to connect parents and help them learn how to advocate for the best opportunities for their students.

Q: How many schools are Excel graduates currently attending and how do you help them select the right fit for their placement schools?
A: Our students currently attend 54 high schools in Massachusetts and New England. Some of the high schools that are furthest away are the Masters School in New York, the White Mountain School, Berkshire School, and Deerfield Academy.

At Excel, we are constantly talking with students about high school and college options. We start targeted high school visits in seventh grade. The Director of High School Placement meets with students and families to generate lists of schools that might be potential fits, taking into account standardized test scores, grades, and the wants and needs of families. The school decision is ultimately a family decision in conjunction with the Director of High School Placement. She helps families think about what opportunities are available at the various schools and what environment will be the most beneficial for each student.

We have found from experience over time that there is a breaking point, and if students are making a decision for us and not for themselves, they will typically be unsuccessful. Families and students need to buy in and support the ultimate decision. Students that are the most successful in high school are the ones who are excited about their placement. The trick is to help find that perfect sweet spot in terms of pushing them but also setting them up to be successful.

Students generally apply to about eight schools, depending on residency. We arrange large group visits to different high schools in fifth and sixth grade and offer smaller, more targeted, group visits in the spring for seventh graders. In smaller groups, we expose students to charter, independent, boarding, and pilot schools. Throughout eighth grade, students visit high schools and attend shadow days with families and on their own. We also have partnerships with some high schools that come to Excel to meet with students and, sometimes, particularly if the schools are farther away, conduct interviews with students at Excel. We hold a high school fair in the fall, which over 40 high schools attend. This on-site fair ensures transportation is not a barrier for students and families when considering different options.

Q: What is your relationship like with the placement schools?
A: We are mindful about developing careful and cooperative relationships with high schools, so that we are not only asking things of them but also giving to them. We conduct regular high school visits that are really collaborative. I think a lot of high schools and counselors feel different nonprofits and CBOs just want something from them, and it can be difficult to build relationships as a result. We believe this is not the right approach to take, and we have found it important to be mindful of the work everyone does and determine how we can best mold and fit in around that to support them in the work they are doing, and/or close the gap if one exists.

Q: Do you offer college tours for your graduates?
A: Yes, we arrange college visits in the spring and over the summer. We do some tours to schools in the Boston area and others to cities that are further away, like Providence and Worcester. If we have alums currently at any of the schools, we recruit them to run the tours and answer questions for our students.

Q: Are there any specific success stories you would like to share about students at Excel?
A: There are so many real triumphs we celebrate at Excel. We have one student who dropped out of high school, then went on to finish his GED, and is now at Bunker Hill Community College. We have another student at college despite being undocumented and having a number of obstacles to face related to that. We have yet another graduate who is currently a Posse Scholar at Union College, and an alum who went on to Boston Latin Academy and is now one of the top scholars in the engineering program at Tufts.

One of our Excel graduates had been a pretty low-achieving student at his previous schools, struggling with behavioral issues as well as academics. He came through the Excel program and did pretty well, is now a junior at BC High, and has been one of our weekly tutors for the last two years. We are now talking with him about applying for a Gates Millennium Scholarship. This is a student who really locked in and launched himself forward, and his is one of the emblematic stories of our school and of our program.

Q: I can tell you must really love your job.
A: I feel so lucky. I get to meet these students in fifth grade and shake their hands on their first day, I get to hug them at their high school graduation, and then I get to see them on through their college graduation.

 

November Member Spotlight: Uncommon Schools
Interview with: Principal Jesse Rector, Clinton Hill Middle School, North Star Academy Network
Interviewed by: Carrie Tate, NPEA Member Services Associate

Snapshot:
Clinton Hill Middle School – part of the North Star and Uncommon Schools Network
Year school was founded: The North Star Academy was founded in 1997; Clinton Hill Middle School was founded in 2004 as the second middle school in the North Star Network.
Number of students served: 303
Grade levels of students served: 5-8
% male/female: 42% male/58% female
% of low-income students served: 81% are on free and reduced lunch
% of minority students served: 100%
Attrition rate: 4% for all of North Star Network schools. The North Star Network consists of seven schools – three elementary, three middle, and one high school.
High School: North Star High School is one of the only schools in the state that has 100% college acceptance rate for seniors.
Mission: The mission of North Star Academy Charter School of Newark is to prepare each student to enter, succeed in, and graduate from college. We consider all of our schools to be “one school with one mission”, and this is something that is engrained in the culture of our school.
Questions? Contact Principal Rector for more information.

Q: Can you talk about the collaboration between Clinton Hill Middle and the Downtown Campus Middle School?
A: North Star launched in 1997 as an elementary charter school in Newark and grew to be a middle school and then a high school. Under the leadership of Michael Mann, we decided to replicate North Star’s downtown campus and build Clinton Hill Middle School in 2005. Our leadership spent a year in meta-cognitive discussion about what made the North Star downtown campus work so successfully, what we wanted to capture and replicate, and where we could improve. Based on our ongoing analysis and discussion, we replicated the downtown campus from top to bottom, implementing several systems at Clinton Hill Middle School and building systems where they did not exist. Great schools are built on great systems.

As a network of seven schools, we do powerful work together. For example, a few years ago, we developed a culture rubric to define, measure the strength, and normalize the culture of North Star schools. As a community of leaders, we periodically descend on one of our campuses, visit and rate each classroom, calculate an aggregate score, and provide feedback to the school’s leadership team. We determine how we can make the school’s culture tighter and identify where we need to make improvements. Our system is one of constant collaboration, in every aspect.

Q: How do you interact with the broader Uncommon Schools network?
A: Uncommon Schools is a charter management organization, providing essential systems that allow us to focus on teaching and learning. Uncommon Schools has networks of schools in Boston, New York City, Newark, Rochester, and Troy. North Star is Uncommon School’s network in Newark, NJ. North Star actually predates Uncommon and was co-founded in 1997 by Norman Atkins. Norman had the idea of linking high-performing charter schools to share best practices and advance the movement of providing a world-class education for kids who have been denied it. He joined forces with Doug Lemov (author of Teach Like a Champion), John King, Brett Peiser, and Evan Rudall to found Uncommon Schools in 2005. Each of these leaders were running really successful schools, so Norman linked us to learn from each other and grow models. If you want to do something at scale, there have to be intentional systems. These leaders developed common operational, structural, and cultural systems to create educational opportunities for our students.

The Uncommon Schools network has really successful, collaborative systems around data-driven instruction. Our students are assessed every six weeks in all subject areas. The assessments are developed in house and are aligned to state and national standards as well as college readiness skills, which are mapped down into our elementary schools. The data from these assessments is downloaded into a spreadsheet and teachers are able to get a really granular look at their instruction. We review results with teachers and make six-week re-teach plans. We look at how cohorts and individuals are performing, and we look at standards to determine what has been mastered, what has been retained, and what needs to be re-taught. All of our schools go through this process simultaneously, using common assessments, which allows us to convene our teachers for cross-campus data evaluation. Our teachers can then collaboratively brainstorm how to re-teach things and share methods for what has worked well, resulting in a powerful dialogue about the best and most effective way to teach our students. Our scores really mirror each other across our schools, which is a testament to how tight our culture is and how strong our systems are. North Star’s Managing Director Paul Bambrick details our data-driven instructional model in his book, Driven by Data: A Practical Guide to Improve Instruction.

Uncommon Schools is closing the achievement gap by being the glue between the various participating networks and helping the collaboration take shape. An example of one of the many services Uncommon Schools provides is recruitment assistance. The most important people besides children are teachers, and great teachers produce great results. After Uncommon Schools identifies potential candidates to meet our needs, they hand over the process to us to decide who we will hire. Uncommon also provides us with technology infrastructure support and opportunities for professional development. Through Uncommon Schools and the expertise of Doug Lemov, our staff was trained on the taxonomy of effective teaching, and Managing Director Paul Bambrick led our efforts around data-driven instruction. We have worked on building and systemizing things that make all of our schools strong, such as a K-4 reading taxonomy and math taxonomy for grades 5-12. We codify the best systems and practices of all of our schools and train our leaders and teachers on how to use those systems.

Q: Can you talk more about the Uncommon Schools annual peer inspections?
A: Each Uncommon School is inspected annually by peers from other schools within the Uncommon network. This is a great opportunity for leaders to bring a fresh perspective to each other’s schools. Just the other week, I was in Boston for the inspection of Roxbury Prep Charter School. The inspection involves a day-long retreat, preceded by a detailed self-reflection around core questions by the school leadership. The inspection team determines questions for the leaders and teachers in an effort to get the truest representation of the school. We give each other the difficult feedback we need. We spend the morning interviewing the Director of Operations and the Principal to get their perspective on the school. We then observe each teacher, discuss the trends we see, and make recommendations. Sometimes this is difficult work because we are looking at something that is already amazing and working to make it even better – it’s a relentless pursuit of excellence in the service of children. As a group, we identify three focus areas, address challenges, and create an action plan. There is so much built-in professional development for all of us involved in these peer inspections, as we are constantly learning from each other and pushing to improve our systems.

Q: In what other ways are your teachers and leaders involved in professional development opportunities across the network?
A: We have Master Teacher leadership retreats, during which the best teachers in the network train their colleagues in a variety of areas. As the Principal, I have weekly two-hour meetings with my supervisor, the Managing Director of the North Star network of Uncommon Schools. These meetings help me develop my skills as a leader and make my school stronger.

Q: How are students selected for admission to Clinton Hill Middle School? What is the recruitment and admissions process like?
A: The entry points to North Star are in Grade K and Grade 5, by blind public lottery. Families in the city of Newark can put their child’s name in the lottery, which takes place every year in January. All of our students come into the school through this lottery system.

Q: Can you talk about the transitions between Clinton Hill Middle School and elementary/secondary schools? Are there established pipeline relationships with other schools within the North Star network?
A: All North Star Middle School students are automatically eligible to go to our high school. Once our elementary schools reach capacity, every elementary school students will have the opportunity to attend of the North Star’s Middle Schools. Eventually, North Star will service students in grades K-12. Uncommon Schools helped us raise money to open a brand new high school this fall, which has been really exciting for our students.

Q: Please explain more about the four values of Caring, Respect, Responsibility, and Justice. How do you incorporate these into the culture of your school?
A: People often ask us what our character development program is; our character development program really is our program. These core values guide the school and are embedded in everything we do. When we hold morning meetings, we message our core values and we message college. We frame real-life examples around the core values to illustrate them to our students. As an example, one of our sub-core values is perseverance, or building yourself up when you fall. To message this, we looked at Hope Solo, an athlete who reacted poorly to being benched and was then kicked off the team. After apologizing, Hope was allowed back on the team, changed her attitude, and ended up being a true team player. In reaction to this story, one of our fifth grade students expressed he felt it was part of the responsibility of a teammate to publicly support the coach and the team and save problems and concerns for a private conversation. This connection really illustrates how our students are learning to understand and internalize the values.

In our community, we hold each other accountable. If our students make a mistake, they publicly apologize in front of the others during morning circle. A student will explain how he/she broke the core values and what steps he/she will take to fix the problem. The student then asks permission to return to the circle to continue their education, and the group welcomes them back. This group demonstration of support and forgiveness, while daunting at first, has proved to be a powerful tool for teaching the core values. By sixth or seventh grade, our students are no longer compromising the values and have really internalized the culture. As an extension of this, our teachers and staff use the values to discipline students. If a teacher is disciplining a student in private, it is not uncommon to hear them talk about the values with the student: caring, responsibility, courage, justice. We like to tear down actions but build up children, contrasting whatever behavior has been deemed inappropriate or unprofessional with who we believe the child is. We talk about why the decisions they made are poor and focus on who the child is and what they are capable of.

October Member Spotlight: The College Board
Interview with: Heather Ayres, Senior Educational Manager, K-12 Services
Contact Heather for more information.

Date founded:
In 1900, the College Board was created to expand access to higher education – to identify and extend opportunities to talented students across the country who might not otherwise be identified for post-secondary education.

Today’s Board is a membership organization of schools and colleges that serves more than seven million students and the broader educational community through research and advocacy on behalf of students, educators and schools.

Historical moments in the Board’s early history:

• 1900: The College Entrance Examination Board is formed to help colleges and universities identify deserving students through shared entrance exams, or “College Boards.”
• 1947: The College Board, the American Council on Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching collaborated to create a nonprofit testing agency, the Educational Testing Service.
• 1954: The College Board’s College Scholarship Service is founded, pioneering need-based student financial aid.
• 1955: The College Board acquires administration of the Advanced Placement Program, designed to encourage high school students to engage in college-level work.
• 1965: The College Board leads a campaign to desegregate SAT testing centers in the south in order to ensure all students receive equitable testing conditions.

Number of members served:
The Board is an association that represents more than 5,900 colleges, universities and schools and, through its membership, leads national and international efforts to improve access to and readiness for higher education.

With a mission to uphold the twin goals of equity and excellence, we’re committed to increasing the number of students who are prepared for life and work in the 21st century. We work closely with school districts throughout the country, middle schools, high schools, college access organizations, community colleges, four-year colleges, policymakers and state education agencies to achieve this mission.

Interesting Facts:
We work with 7 million students annually, 23,000 high schools and approximately 3,800 colleges.

We administer more than 3 million SAT exams across the country and around the world and, in the last decade alone, participation among minority students in College Board has increased by 78 percent thanks to the good work of organizations like those associated with NPEA!

The Board engages a community of approximately 130,000 AP teachers and we administered more than 3.2 million AP exams in the 2010 academic year. The ability to mobilize so many talented educators is key to the Board’s ability to realize its mission.

We have relationships with more than 900 school districts across the country, reaching more than 54 percent (about 9,700) of total U.S. public school districts through PSAT/NMSQT alone!

Q: What is the mission and what are some of the primary goals of the College Board?
A: Education is an investment in the future, and the College Board is driven by a single goal — to ensure that every student has the opportunity to prepare for, enroll in and graduate from college.

Q: What services does the College Board provide?
A: The work of the Board falls broadly into three categories:

1) College Readiness
It is our goal to ensure that every student in the US has access to a high-quality education and is ready to succeed in college. Our initiatives are comprehensive. We promote innovative curricula, extensively researched assessment tools, district and guidance resources designed by educators for educators, all with the aim of helping all K-12 students prepare for and connect with meaningful post-secondary opportunities.

2) College Connection and Success
With respect to connections/success, we provide resources, tools and services to students, parents, colleges in the areas of college planning, admissions, financial aid, and retention. For more information College Connection and Success, click here.

3) Advocacy
The College Board is a very strong national and state-level advocate for excellence and equity in education. We promote high academic standards for all students; support educators; and build critical connections between policy, research and real-world experience to drive reform in education. For more information on advocacy programs, please click here.

For more information on the College Board's readiness programs, college connection and success programs, and advocacy work, click here.

Q: What partnerships and/or collaborations has the College Board developed with other organizations, associations, schools, or programs?
A: We partner extensively with states, districts, schools, community-based organizations, federally funded programs such as GearUp and with NGOs – the list goes on and on. For example, just last week the College Board Advocacy & Policy Center, in collaboration with the National Council of La Raza and Excelencia in Education, launched the College Completion Agenda: Latino Edition, which is a new resource underscoring available P–20 data and effective policies to advance college completion among the nation’s Latino student population.

In August, we launched YouCanGo. I encourage everyone to check it out. This is the result of a partnership between the College Board and the Education Conservancy.

Our partnerships, directly with individual educators and with schools and districts throughout the country and the world, represent the College Board in action. This is at the heart of what we do as an organization. We partner to affect educational reforms that are research-based and focused on raising student achievement.

Q: What is the College Board Schools model?
A: One of two current College Board reform models is designed to help middle school and high school students in underrepresented groups enter the pipeline to higher education. There are 17 College Board Schools in New York State: 12 in New York City, two in Buffalo, two in Rochester, and one in Yonkers. College Board Schools serve students in grades 6-12 from low-income and traditionally underserved areas. The goals of these small schools align with the Board’s mission and by design they foster a learning environment of academic rigor with high expectations for all students, meaningful relationships, challenging and engaging teaching and learning practices, and knowledgeable/caring relationships with students.

Q: Can you tell me about any upcoming College Board conferences, forums, and/or professional development opportunities?
A: In addition to the National Forum in New York and the Regional Forums, which I hope NPEA members will attend, annual programs include the Native American Student Advocacy Institute (NASAI) in Los Angeles in May 2012, Prepárate: Educating Latinos for the Future of America in Miami in May 2012, A Dream Deferred™: The Future of African American Education in Los Angeles in April, and The National Office of School Counselor Advocacy and AP Annual Conference. All of these are really very valuable professional opportunities.

Q: Can you tell me more about College Board publications and research?
A: My colleagues in research and development are phenomenal and the quality of their work is outstanding. Annually, we release an analysis of participation and performance data for each of the assessment programs. These are organized at the state, district, and school levels and help educators not only to track changes in student achievement over time but also to identify areas where we’re making notable gains. Additionally, our teams do a tremendous amount of work to examine the predictive validity of our assessments in relation to student outcomes. We also invest in research to evaluate professional development programs and curriculum, as well as to better understand the educational experiences of particular sub-populations of students.

September Member Spotlight: Chicago Scholars
Interview with: Karen Foley, President, Chicago Scholars
Interviewed by: Carrie Tate, NPEA Member Services Associate
Contact Karen Foley for more information.

Total number of students served: 800 in the academic year 2010-2011
Number of Chicago neighborhoods represented in CS: 69 of 77
Number of staff: We have a full time staff of 12 (including a fellow) and 5 part-time staff. We have over 200 volunteers ages 23-63 representing over 50 different industries, and we have 80 Scholars peer-mentoring.

Q: What is Chicago Scholars?
A: Chicago Scholars is a five-year mentoring program helping high-potential, low-income, underserved, and inner-city youth navigate critical transitions from high school to college and college to career. We are anchored by a three-tiered mentoring program. In the first tier, adult mentors and college experts work with cohorts of high school students to assist them in preparing their college applications. In the second tier, rising college freshman are matched with peer mentors. Finally, the third tier consists of career mentoring for rising sophomores, juniors, and seniors.

The mission of Chicago Scholars is to create a public/private partnership to mentor a college-educated workforce of 10,000 high-potential, low income and broadly diverse Scholars over the next decade who will be drawn from every high school and every neighborhood in the city. Our goal is to recruit 75% or more of them back to Chicago as future leaders who will drive exciting advancements throughout our city for decades to come.

Ultimately, the goal of Chicago Scholars is to make Chicago a better place to live, learn, work, and raise a family by unleashing the talent in overlooked neighborhoods and schools.

Q: How did the Chicago Scholars program evolve?
A: CS began in 1996 as a onetime scholarship organization. About seven years ago the Board decided to revisit its strategy and launched an aggressive search for the best practices of college access and success.

Initially, we talked to students in existing college access programs and looked at the educational access landscape to identify what needs were unaddressed. We researched local, statewide, and national best practices. During our second year, we merged with another organization and began to reassess our goals, structure, and brand. We were joined by new staff members that helped us shape and improve our programming.

We brought together over a dozen local organizations and more than 70 colleges and universities as key partners who share best practices about college access and success. We also “share” students so it makes it much more efficient and cost effective when we work together. Some of these organizations included The Chicago Urban League, 100 Black Men, Pilson Community Council Neighborhoods, the Chicago Public Schools and representatives from private and catholic high schools, as well as others. We also brought in a mentoring expert and an admissions dean to offer perspective from the university level. The team’s charge was to find the best practice to college access. We spent six months evaluating the landscape and came back with recommendations and innovative ideas. One thing we discovered was that nobody had a comprehensive best practice for college access curriculum and programming. We expanded our searches nationally and were still left without answers. So, we decided to develop a logic model with a set of very specific recommendations, turned it into curriculum, and had it peer-reviewed by high school and college admissions counselors. The first year we implemented the new curriculum, we had 20 students, and six years later, we now have 800 students in the program. What I am especially pleased about is that we continue to collaborate with our original partners.

Q: How do you and your staff approach the college prep process with your Scholars?
A: The college prep business is a $360 million business in the United States. Unfortunately, access to personalized expert college counseling is a privilege for those who can pay. Our families cannot afford to hire outside experts. So, to level the playing field for our Scholars, we give them the equipment in the form of workshops, teach them to play the game in terms of how to navigate the college admissions process, let them practice before hitting the competition with mentors, and give them ongoing coaching and support they need once they get on the campus.

Mentoring is a cornerstone of everything we do. At one time, we had a one-on-one mentoring program, but with the help of the Polk Brothers Foundation, we transformed it into a three-tiered mentoring program to be pre-responsive to the needs of our Scholars at different points in their high school and college careers. Along the way, we met Marybeth Kravets. Marybeth served as the president of NACAC and was the counselor for 31 years at Deerfield Academy, a phenomenal high school on the North Shore of Chicago. Having visited over 3,000 colleges, she is steeped in the field and she is one of the nation’s experts on working with students with disabilities.

As part of the mentoring process, we focus on the mechanics of college access but we also deliberately talk with our Scholars about social capital, the power of networking, the importance of giving back through reciprocal relationships, strategies for college, and strategies for accessing the resources that will help them be successful and fulfill their goals. We also try to encourage our students to have the confidence to ask for help when they need it, to ensure they know how to find the support they may need during their college experience.

Q: What is the Chicago Scholars Onsite College Admissions Forum?
A: Getting an early start on identifying and applying to a good set of colleges is just one of the advantages our Scholars receive. Five years ago, we also created an innovative way to jumpstart the acceptance process by creating an Onsite Admissions Forum. In order to participate, students are required to prepare a minimum of five college applications. Mentors and our staff then review the applications for quality, and we send them directly to our college partners all around the nation. Colleges come to Chicago in October having reviewed the applications in advance of meeting our kids. The majority of our college partners are selective and highly selective institutions that can offer exceptional educational opportunities backed by solid financial aid packages. During the forum, their admissions directors conduct interviews with our Scholars, and two thirds will offer admission that same day. Last year, we raised over $3.5 million in a single day for our Scholars.

By encouraging our students to focus on their college preparations during the summer before their senior year, they have more time to think about their decisions and put more focused energy into their applications. It can be difficult for students to devote time and energy to the college process while they are juggling school and various activities during the academic year. We challenge students to think about their learning styles, determine what is important to them, and research different colleges.

Q: Can you tell me about some of your upcoming plans and goals for Chicago Scholars?
A: In 2013, we plan to hold our first Career Onsite, with a goal of recruiting well-educated college talent back into the city. The Career Onsite serves two distinct purposes. First, it fulfills the goal of attending college by allowing our Scholars the opportunity to compete for great careers, and it demonstrates that the investment we have made in the Scholars is returned as businesses are actively seeking a broadly diverse workforce.

It is a perfect win-win and it gives a hands-down advantage to Chicago over any other city in America. In partnership with our key partners, including the Chicago Urban League, IIT – Boeing Scholars Program, Kappa Institute, Hispanic Alliance for Career Advancement, the IB program, the Archdiocese, and more, we are drawing the best talent in Chicago and bringing them to the business community. These are academically ambitious kids who have demonstrated a high level of discipline and focus about what they want to achieve, who have demonstrated leadership and resilience, and who are willing to work hard and overcome obstacles. Our Scholars are transitioning into every professional industry/sector you imagine. They are working and interning at Deloitte, McDonald’s, Northwestern Hospital, Harris Bank, Chapman and Cutler, Kirkland and Ellis, PNC Bank, and more, while others are pursuing specialized graduate degrees. These students represent every gender, ethnicity, religion, and neighborhood in Chicago, coming from public, private, charter, and parochial schools throughout the city.

While we are very proud of our Scholars and of the donors and businesses that invest in them, we know that boosting the college graduation rates for low income students is complex, and we feel fortunate to collaborate with so many fine individuals and organizations to accomplish a 95% college graduation rate launching thousands of exceptional students into their careers.

Q: Who does Chicago Scholars serve? How are students selected for the program?
A: We work closely with a roster of community organizations, every high school in Chicago and we recruit using our existing class of high school seniors who get the word out to their younger peers who are high school juniors. This past year, our Scholars got creative and used tangible marketing tactics like t-shirts, pens, flyers – even temporary tattoos – to help draw in interested candidates. They had a great year with more than 1151 applications for 300 spots.

Q: Do you have any partnerships with college access programs that serve students in middle and/or high school, before they would be eligible to participate in Chicago Scholars?
A: We have successfully forged relationships with organizations including High Sight, Daniel Murphy Scholarship Fund, The Chicago Urban League, Kappa Institute, LINK Unlimited, CircEsteem, AVID, the IB program, the Archdiocese, as well as principals and counselors throughout the city. There are so many great organizations that work with youth earlier in the pipeline, so we are glad to partner with them and we are looking to expand our collaboration model.

Q: Why is this work important for Chicago?
A: Chicago is the third largest public school district in the nation, the second largest Hispanic community in the United States, and the number one place in the country for black entrepreneurship. Still, out of the top 100 U.S. cities, Chicago only ranks at #58 for the percent of population holding a college degree. There are almost as many college dropouts as there are college graduates in Chicago. We have great culture and so many fantastic institutions, but half of our students drop out of high school and we are still working on developing a world-class educational system. Meanwhile, there are thousands of kids who stick with it and want to attend college. If we can help them succeed, they become role models for their younger peers in their local Chicago communities. Success breeds success. That is why we will continue to work as furiously and diligently as possible to attract high-potential kids, improve our city’s ranking, and narrow the gap between those with college degrees and those without.

Q: For the mentoring component of the Chicago Scholars program, who serves as your mentors?
A: Many of our mentors are drawn from our High Five partners. High Five partners make commitments to funding a class of Chicago Scholars for the full five years of our program. What is so great about our High Five partners is they want to do more than give money. High Five partners sit on our Board, serve as mentors and help us recruit new Scholars. It is wonderful when our Scholars go on to serve as interns and employees. We are all learning about the power of relationship building.

Q: What is the Chicago Scholars Life Line Fund?
A: Given their backgrounds and all the demands placed on our Scholars, many of them are just one crisis away from dropping out of college, for so many reasons that are not always academically related. With our lifeline fund, we are able to help students who have to care for a sick parent by helping them rent an apartment closer to home instead of living in the dorm, or helping them fill the gap in their package so they can buy health insurance or by supplementing a semester of work study so they can completely focus on their academics. The Life Line Fund is another way we help our Scholars pull themselves forward no matter what crisis they may be facing.

Q: Can you share a few examples of Chicago Scholars success stories?
A: We have a 95% college graduation rate for students who complete the five year Chicago Scholars program. We are always eager to celebrate the successes of our Scholars.

Sonam Velani, a Chicago Scholar graduate, recently visited me. The first person in her family to attend college, Sonam graduated from Harvard and now works at Goldman Sachs. Chicago is part of her territory. Now she is introducing me to opportunities!

One of our Scholars, “the Million Dollar Scholar”, received $1,000,000 in scholarships. Darrius Quarrels proves that he is not one in a million that made it, but rather one in a million that CAN make it if we work together.
Read more about our Scholars and their successes on the Chicago Scholars website here.

 

August Member Spotlight

August 2011 Member Spotlight: After-School All-Stars
Interview with: Aaron Dworkin, Executive Vice President, National Network
Interviewed by: Carrie Tate, NPEA Member Services Associate
Contact Emely Martinez for more information.

Snapshot of After-School All-Stars - National Headquarters
Date Founded: 1992 (Inner City Games); 2001 (After-School All-Stars)
Total Number of Students Served: 81,404
Grade Level/Age of Students Served: elementary (30%), middle school (70%), and some high school students
Demographics of Students Served: 90% are students of color, 85% qualify for free and reduced lunch, 70% are in middle school
National After-School All-Stars Locations: 453 Title I schools in 12 cities: New York, Columbus, Atlanta, Orlando, Miami, Chicago, San Antonio, Las Vegas, Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Hawaii.

Q: What is the mission After-School All-Stars?
A: The mission of After-School All-Stars is to keep kids safe and achieve in school and life. The organization originated in 1991 as the Inner-City Games Foundation offering sports programming for at-risk kids. The after-school movement developed in response to the realization that crime rates, drug use, and youth violence spiked between the hours of 3:00-6:00pm and an increased need to keep kids safe and productive during those hours. As the national education reform movement progressed and kids faced increasing challenges, there was more of a need to provide robust programming to offer academic support and social-emotional development for kids. Over time, After-School All-Stars evolved into a comprehensive after-school program to help keep kids safe and prepare them for success in school and life.

Q: What are the components of the After-School All-Stars program? How is the program structured and what are some of the main goals?
A: After-School All-Stars integrates three pillars and six cornerstones into its programming. The three pillars are: 1) academics, 2) enrichment, and 3) health & fitness. The six cornerstones of quality are: 1) strong school partnerships, 2) physical and emotional safety, 3) caring youth-adult relationships, 4) student voice and choice, 5) intentional skill development, and 6) community and family engagement. The After-School All-Stars program takes place five days per week for three hours each day during the academic year, incorporating various program components to provide enriching, fun, activity-based experiences for students. We have several programs focused on four national initiatives: We Are Ready - Middle to High School Transition (which includes CampUs: Summer High School Transition Program), Sports is a Hook, CEO - Career Exploration Opportunities, and Life Service Action. Every chapter in each of our twelve cities has its own board of directors and independent 501c3 status, and we have a total of 4000 staff between all of our locations.

 

Q: How are students selected for the After-School All-Stars program?
A: We typically look for students demonstrating early warning signs that they are likely to drop out of school. Many of these students struggle with issues such as behavior, academics, and attendance. We generally have between 100-150 students in each After-School All-Stars school program. We identify students who need extra help, and we take a subset of 8th graders to place in the We Are Ready program. This program is geared towards students we feel are at particular risk of dropping out of high school.

Q: What are some of your national program priorities?
A: Over the past several years, we have increased the capacity of what we can provide for our affiliate chapters in terms of marketing, fundraising, and programming support. Initially, we were able to provide a lot of guidance around our baseline national program model, and more recently we have been working on determining how we can accomplish more together around the high school drop out crisis. After-School All-Stars generally operates in middle schools that feed into at-risk high schools. We began to ask ourselves what more we can do for our middle school students, 8th graders in particular. We spoke with a number of individuals to gather perspectives, expertise, and best practices. In the end, we created a yearlong curriculum for 8th graders called We Are Ready. This program offers students an opportunity to talk and learn about study skills, why high school is important, how high school connects to college, and how education connects to careers. We started this new initiative within the last year and a half and it is now operating in ten out of twelve of our chapters.

So much research shows that kids drop out in either 9th or 10th grade, and it is imperative we reach them before they reach that point. The summer before students enter high school is a critical time, and we wanted to offer a more intensive program for the most vulnerable students. This led to the creation of CampUs high school transition camps.

Q: Can you tell me more about the CampUs transition camps?
A: CampUs is a one-week overnight program designed to serve students during the middle to high school transition. We bring students to a college campus to talk about high school and allow them to see and experience what it’s like to be in a college setting. The camp is designed to help students discover positive and compelling answers to two questions: 1) Why do I need to be in school?, and 2) How is anything I learn ever going to be useful to me in my real life?. A student once told me, “Going to college is something rich people do on TV.” This program helps to break down that image and make college more accessible and real to students.

We offer a high school track that addresses issues like credits, graduation requirements, study skills, test-taking strategies, and other relevant topics for students approaching high school. We bring in rising high school seniors to be resources for the other students. These peer mentors grew up in the same neighborhoods and serve as powerful examples for the younger students. We also offer a college preparation class with a group of Posse Foundation Scholars who are current college students, who also came from similar communities and serve as bright, motivated role models. We look to organizations that already do what they do well, and collaborate to provide opportunities and seamless services to our students. City Year, Posse Foundation, and Public Allies are examples of some of these organizations.

At the end of our weeklong college class, students complete the Common Application, learn how to write resumes, practice writing personal essays, conduct mock interviews, and write recommendations for each other. We hold a mock college acceptance ceremony on the last day, during which we celebrate each student’s successes, call them individually to the front of the room to hand in their application, and award them a personal letter of support from a staff member.

Students also participate in a leadership class that focuses on how they can learn to set themselves apart and be leaders in their teams and in their communities. We ask students to identify and research a community problem and propose a solution. We do this to empower students, equip them with leadership skills, and help them understand how education puts them in a better position to enact change around these issues. Other skills we cover in the class include public speaking, how to run a meeting, and how to build consensus. After dinner every night, we bring in a panel of professionals to present a career night for students. This aspect of our program is built with a focus on connecting students to role models working in different careers including government, media, nonprofits, and business. This past summer, students heard from the Superintendent of the Las Vegas school district, the Lieutenant Governor of Hawaii, an artist who draws for South Park, the head of a foundation in Miami, a Dean at Florida International University, lawyers, financial advisors, and entrepreneurs. At the career nights, panelists speak about the steps they took along their educational and life paths to get to where they are today. We try to connect students’ personal interests to what they want to do in high school, relate that to what major they might pursue in college, and connect that to potential career exploration.

When students graduate from the CampUs programs, they receive copies of the Center for Student Opportunity’s College Access and Opportunity Guide. The book is a great resource because it doesn’t just highlight the nation’s top colleges, but rather features many more campuses that are accessible to students and have an assortment of programs and scholarship opportunities available to them before and after enrollment.

Click here to download more information about the CampUs program.

To read about the Las Vegas CampUs program in the Las Vegas Review Journal, please click here. Watch an NBC Las Vegas news clip on the story here.

To read about the CampUs program at San Diego State University, as featured in the San Diego Union Tribune, please click here.

Q: Do you have any new initiatives or expansion plans?
A: We are frequently approached by other cities asking us to bring the After-School All-Stars program model to their communities. We are looking at Washington D.C. and Phoenix among others as potential future chapter locations. For our CampUs program, we started with a pilot in the summer of 2010 with 50 students from the five west coast cities where we currently have chapters. This summer, each of those chapters ran their own version, with each location serving approximately 50 students. We ran an identical camp in Miami at Florida International University to teach our four east coast chapters about the new CampUs model, with the intention of rolling the program out at each east coast location during the summer of 2012. A lot of our future movement depends upon the local support in those cities and our staff capacity here at our national headquarters.

 

July Member Spotlight

July 2011 Member Spotlight: WilsonDailyPrep
Interview with: Laura Wilson, Founder and President
Interviewed by: Carrie Tate, NPEA Member Services Associate
Contact Nina Auerbach for more information.

Q: Why did you join NPEA?
A: We are excited to partner with NPEA. NPEA members are educating students about the college process, the importance of going to college, and how to get into college. Our services can be a great complement to the important work NPEA members are already doing in their programs. Many students cannot afford private tutoring, so the WilsonDailyPrep online program makes personalized test preparation accessible to all deserving students. NPEA is committed to educational access for underrepresented students and so are we.

Q: How did you come up with this idea and how has WilsonDailyPrep (WDP) evolved?
A: I was a high school English teacher and reading specialist for over 15 years in Westchester County, NY. I saw a need in my community for tutoring services and test preparation, so in 2001, I opened a private in-office tutoring boutique, WilsonPrep. Today, we have around 250 students coming to our office weekly.

In 2005, I was walking through the halls of Horace Greeley High School in New York, and I saw some of the students that I tutored cramming to complete the homework I had assigned. I had a strict policy that students must complete their homework to continue my tutoring services, as I strongly believe daily practice is essential to achievement. I was frustrated to see my students weren't spending the necessary time on their work, and when they were, they were often cramming it all in on one day.
So, I decided to divide my students in half to try out a new strategy. Every day, I emailed half of my students four questions and required that they respond with the answers the same day. I would then evaluate and respond with personalized feedback. I continued these daily quizzes throughout the year and tracked students’ scores. The students who answered the four daily questions for a year scored about 50 points higher than those who just came to the office for private tutoring. These students on average increased their test scores by 250 points, compared to the other students who saw increases of 200 points. Why this difference? The daily questions break the SAT into small, manageable chunks which enable skill growth.

Over time, it became difficult to respond individually to each student, so I decided to invest in my idea of providing daily questions and create WilsonDailyPrep. Since the questions take approximately 5 minutes a day all students can fit in SAT tutoring into their busy schedule.

Q: How does the WilsonDailyPrep program work?
A: WilsonDailyPrep is an online program that reinforces critical reasoning and writing skills and holds students accountable for daily, deliberate SAT practice. The program breaks the SAT into bite-sized, manageable tasks that allow students to focus and improve. Students are emailed a six-minute quiz each day and receive immediate feedback and analyses that highlight the key cognitive strategies necessary for testing success. By providing the consistent practice, reinforcement and feedback fundamental in the process of cognitive learning, the program provides the support and skills necessary for students to achieve testing success.

The program is multi-faceted and dynamic. Each student is assigned a specially-trained personal coach. Coaches offer motivation, guidance, supplementary assignments and recommendations for further study. They also ensure accountability through emails and phone calls home. Students, parents, and administrators have access to online progress reports so that students may target specific strengths and weaknesses. Additionally, WilsonDailyPrep provides the extra tools students need to reach their testing potential. All users have access to downloadable worksheets, multi-media video lessons, tips, New York Times Op/Ed articles for analysis and WilsonDailyPrep's 1000-word interactive vocabulary game.

Unlike other programs, we truly hold students accountable! If a student has not completed a daily quiz in 8 days, the personal coach calls the parent and/or administrator, urging the student to re-engage. This accountability ensures participation and eventual testing success. Technology is great, but it must have the human element.
WDP is based on the premise that a little practice every day is a lot more effective than cramming several months before an exam. Since the WilsonDailyPrep SAT program only requires six minutes a day from the student, it really complements a Princeton Review or Kaplan test prep program.

Q: In addition to online materials, does WilsonDailyPrep offer extra resources?
A: Yes. Every week we send students an actual SAT section so that they can apply what they’ve learned from their daily test prep questions. We also send supplemental worksheets and assignments. In addition, once a month we assign and grade an SAT essay. Chapters from my book, Write the SAT Essay Right, are provided to students so they can learn how to craft an effective, high scoring essay. The complete book is available on Amazon.

Currently, we are in the process of creating an online vocabulary game for middle school students. This interactive game will be a fun, free, engaging way for middle school students to build their vocabulary. WilsonDailyPrep also provides teacher workshops, test prep, curriculum guides, and on-site consulting.

Q: For what age group is the WilsonDailyPrep program intended?A: Some school districts use our program in 10th grade as a college readiness and skill building service. By providing the consistent practice, reinforcement and feedback fundamental in the process of learning, the program allows for a continuum of learning both in and outside of the classroom. The core skills – grammar, reading, writing, and math- enhance the 10th grade curriculum.

However, many schools introduce the WilsonDailyPrep in the 11th grade, as students begin preparation for the SAT. The WilsonDailyPrep still complements classroom learning, but the focus is on getting students ready for the exam.

Q: Does WilsonDailyPrep also provide test preparation for the ACT?
A: The ACT was the test of choice in the mid-west until a few years ago. Now, the ACT is quickly becoming the test of choice on the East Coast. All colleges accept both exams. Many underrepresented students are very successful on the ACT; therefore, I recommend program directors introduce this test to their students. WilsonDailyPrep provides an ACT test prep course that provides them with the necessary skills and strategies for this exam. Students receive daily timed assignments reflecting the different subject areas. Mastering the ACT requires mastering the time element of each section. Because of this, each daily assignment has a built-in timer to help students learn how to pace themselves. If students regularly practice and learn how to pace themselves, they will usually experience success on this exam.

Students who participate in the ACT test preparation also receive a personal coach, accountability through phone calls home, and supplemental assignments.

Q: How do you track student success through your services?
A: We track student success through the school districts by comparing students’ PSAT scores to their SAT scores. Students on average increase 100-150 points. For students who enroll in the program privately (not through an organization or school), we guarantee a 200 point increase. If these students do not achieve a 200 point increase, we keep them on the program and offer private phone tutoring.

Q: Can you tell us more about GraphItForward?
A: As an educator and test preparation expert, I have found that students choose to excel when given opportunities. While working with inner city students in Miami, I stressed the importance of arriving at the SAT prepared. “Bring your calculators, extra batteries, extra erasers, tissues…” One student, Allison, raised her hand and asked, “What should I do if I can’t afford a graphing calculator?”

Her words left me speechless. Why had I never realized this? I became outraged at the inequities within our educational system. And, as a part of this educational system, I knew it was my responsibility to empower students to reach their potential by providing them with the tools they need to succeed. That day was my call to action.

Graph It Forward Today (GIFT) is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit committed to creating equal educational opportunities for high school students. GIFT provides gently used test prep books, graphing calculators and online test prep tutoring to college-bound students who cannot afford these essential academic tools for standardized tests.

With graphing calculators costing approximately $100 and test prep books and services economically out of reach, lower income students cannot experience the enormous lift that these resources provide. Giving this access to students in need provides equal opportunity for all.

GIFT conducts ongoing Study-a-thons in which students raise funds while studying. We will run Study-a-thons for SAT preparation, ACT preparation, and academic skill building. Proceeds from the Study-a-thons will be used to buy graphing calculators for students in need. Those students who are in need of graphing calculators and do participate in a Study-a-thon will receive this scholarship.

As part of the Study-a-thon, students pledge to complete a full exam and worksheets, watch an instructional video, read a chapter from my book, Write the SAT Essay Right, and write an essay.
Students who cannot gather sponsors because of economic reasons are eligible for our “Adopt a Student” program. This program matches sponsors to students in need.
These Study-a-thons directly help students by pushing them to engage in test prep as well as providing the educational tools these students need to succeed.

Graph It Forward will be fully live at the beginning of September.

Q: What else makes the WilsonDailyPrep program unique?
A: We believe students should learn the importance of helping people in other communities, so we have created a relationship with Heifer International and added a citizenship component to our program. Heifer International donates livestock to third-world nations to help develop a sustainable agricultural economy. We have a virtual points bank on our website, and when students get a test prep question correct, they accumulate points. Once they reach a certain number of points, WilsonDailyPrep donates an animal to a family on the student’s behalf. Students receive a picture of the animal and an explanation of where it is going and how it will benefit the family who will receive it. Some school districts work collectively as a group to accumulate points and buy an animal as a collective unit.

 

June Member Spotlight

June 2011 Member Spotlight: Rutgers Future Scholars
Interview with: Aramis Gutierrez, Director of Rutgers Future Scholars
Interviewed by: Carrie Tate, NPEA Member Services Associate
Contact Aramis for more information.

Snapshot of Rutgers Future Scholars

Date founded: Fall of 2007
Total number of students served: 800 (approximately 200 students in each cohort)
Grade Level: Rising 8th graders through 12th graders
Students of minority background: 90%
Percentage of students admitted to 4-year colleges: The oldest group will be 11th graders this fall – 99% on trajectory to graduate high school and be admitted to 4-year institutions
Questions? Contact Aramis.

Q: What is the goal of the Rutgers Future Scholars Program (RFS)?
Our primary goal is to increase the number of academically promising students from the Newark, Camden, New Brunswick, and Piscataway communities who not only complete high school but apply for and complete undergraduate degrees. The communities Rutgers University calls home are historically less advantaged and do not meet state average graduation rates.

Another goal is to create a replicable model and incite a movement among peer institutions to create programs similar to RFS, that would identify, support, and offer free tuition to scholars upon acceptance.

Q: Can you tell me about the various components of the RFS Program? How do you help prepare RFS students for college?
Rutgers University is situated in four cities: Newark, Camden, Piscataway, and New Brunswick. Our scholars are assigned to a campus within their community, with approximately fifty scholars on each campus per cohort.

Part of preparing students for college is answering questions young people have about whether they are “college material,” whether they are prepared, how to determine a course of study, where they will fit in, and how they will afford it. Through RFS programming, we hope to answer those questions and help scholars realize they are “college material” and can handle college-level work. By meeting and interacting with undergraduates, they are better able to envision themselves fitting in with students on a college campus. Finally, each scholar who earns admission to Rutgers will be entitled to free tuition, addressing the question of affordability for students who opt to attend Rutgers.

We take a holistic approach to our programming, incorporating academic enrichment throughout the year as well as summer learning. During the academic year, we provide ongoing academic advisement, tutorials, and social-emotional support. As part of our summer learning component, scholars spend time on campus in courses and interdisciplinary experiences in core subject areas and the performing arts. During the first summer for rising 8th graders, we focus on helping scholars build an identity and understanding of what it means to be college-bound, what education can offer young people, and what careers are available through various college majors. Subsequent summers during high school consist of interdisciplinary project based learning. We also focus on helping scholars build a sense of community and interdependency amongst themselves, stressing a shared responsibility of helping each other stay on track throughout the academic year. We remind our students they are not competing for scholarships. We emphasize that success is not determined by getting ahead of others, but getting ahead of ourselves.

We hope to develop a “how-to” manual or blueprint for creating programs similar to ours. We are documenting the necessary key relationships, the support needed at various levels, the importance of fundraising and identifying key contributors, and other critical factors in creating a successful program.

Q: How are students selected for the program?
Seventh grade students who live in our target communities have the opportunity to apply to RFS. We select approximately 200 students for each incoming class. They are required to attend information sessions, submit an essay and recommendation letters, and meet poverty guidelines. All scholars who participate in RFS come from low-income households. During the application process, we look for students with promise, who earn decent grades and are involved in their communities. We also look for students with high aspirations, self-motivation, and are underrepresented in higher education. We work closely with the school district and value their input and recommendations. The school district provides tremendous support to our program, offering input and logistical support including transportation for scholars to/from campuses. There is a great deal of mutual respect between RFS and district staff.

Q: What mentoring opportunities are available for undergraduate students at Rutgers University? Can you tell me more about your partnership with the University of Washington (UW) Dream Project and their near-peer mentoring program?
We wanted to explore how we could engage the scholars and university on a more personal level. Given our small staff of eleven, we anticipated challenges as the program grew. Over the course of five months, we researched mentoring programs around the nation and spoke with leaders within those programs to explore what could potentially work for RFS. I had the opportunity to become a member of NPEA and attend the 2010 conference in Baltimore, where the University of Washington offered a near-peer mentoring workshop. I realized how unique their program was and how impressive their undergraduates were, and felt our scholars needed to develop similar relationships with undergraduate students back at Rutgers. In partnership with the Department of Psychology and the Center of Civic Engagement and Service, we launched a three-credit course for undergraduates to learn about college access and opportunity, social mobility, and how to become an effective mentor. There are many motivated and engaged students who want to work with youth, but mentors need to cultivate their skills to be successful at it. The Rutgers course allows students to think about issues youth are challenged with while learning valuable skills such as coping strategies, problem solving, teaching organizational and study skills, and providing guidance to help them stay on track for success.

In this course, undergraduates travel once per week to high schools in the area and work with two-three scholars as a way of touching base, keeping them on track, advising them in choosing appropriate courses, and providing emotional guidance through some of the most challenging years of their life. The mentors guide scholars to necessary resources available to them in their school and community, and, in effect, become an extension of our staff. Mentoring relationships also provide an opportunity for the scholars to realize there are people in the social network of the college community who will care about them and be there for them once they enroll.

In the fall of 2010, we launched the mentoring program in New Brunswick with 55 mentors. We had about 85 this spring and hope to have 125+ this fall on the New Brunswick campus. We will also offer the course on the Camden campus this coming year. We currently offer some form of near-peer mentoring on each campus.

UW was integral in helping us launch the course when we did. They assisted us in preparing the various components prior to and during the launch, and have been there along the way to provide guidance and access to resources and staff. UW hosted our staff and two Rutgers undergraduates on their campus earlier this year to learn about what they are doing and observe first-hand their key outreach initiatives. We will return the favor and host them later this year.

Q: On your website, you mention RFS Faculty and Staff is a model of University-Community partnerships. Can you tell me more about that?
We are trying to create a seamless continuum in education, transitioning scholars from their senior year of high school to their first year at a university. There seems to be a disconnect in that transition period, and we have a unique opportunity to talk with Rutgers and district faculty about measures we can take to create a smoother transition into higher education. We are grateful to have strong support from our district partners and funders in addressing this and other issues.

We engage district and university faculty in an advisory capacity to help create curriculum and programming decisions for RFS. Faculty from both districts have taken ownership of this, which has helped make it a success. For example, faculty from the English, Math, and Science departments at the university and high school level have come together to develop strategies for easing the transition in those core subject areas from high school to college. In addition, our scholars work closely with our faculty and staff at the university to address issues relevant within the community itself. By bridging communication gaps and engaging everyone in these discussions, we prepare our young people for college and facilitate the investment of Rutgers University in the community. We have a social responsibility to offer assistance and work on improving the communities in which we work, and feel it is important to engage scholars in addressing some of these important topics and concepts.

Q: How do you engage and support parents/families through RFS?
We have several parent councils that were created by some of the natural leaders among our group of parents. These individuals moved the initiative forward and encouraged discussions around issues that are directly related to the program and their scholars, creating a social network for the parents. Information is power; these groups provide a space to openly communicate about what to expect.

In addition, we offer parents workshops on topics including navigating the college process and helping prepare themselves and their children for the college experience. Many times, parents have been inspired to pursue various personal goals including working towards a high school diploma, learning English, pursuing higher education, and developing new relationships with other parents who share their experiences. Our staff has become an extended family to many of our scholars’ families, which has helped create a close-knit community within RFS.

Q: What other partnerships you have created with programs and/or schools?
Outside of our partnerships with the school district and the University of Washington Dream Project, we have created several partnerships with community-based organizations (e.g. arts organizations, food co-ops, etc.). We try to connect scholars with as many community resources as possible and empower them with information. Our partnerships with local industries and businesses provide opportunities for our scholars to intern, job shadow, or learn more about a certain company or occupation.

Q: Why did you join NPEA and how have you benefited from membership?
We joined NPEA simply for the knowledge sharing. As soon as we joined NPEA, we noticed how generous everyone was with sharing resources and knowledge. NPEA is an impressive and diverse group of members, and we thought it would be important for us as a new organization to expand our own social capital and learn from others. The only way to meet your goals is through collaboration, and I think we emphasize the importance of that through the success of our own partnerships.

Since presenting as part of the Near-Peer Mentoring workshop at the 2011 NPEA conference in Atlanta, we have had a number of follow-up conversations with representatives from various NPEA organizations to talk more in depth about the model we have created at RFS.

May Member Spotlight

May 2011 Member Spotlight: The Boys’ Club of New York (BCNY)
Interview with: Antonio Aponte, Director of Educational Services
Interviewed by: Carrie Tate, NPEA Member Services Associate
Contact Antonio for more information.

Snapshot of BCNY
Date Founded: 1876
Total Number of Boys Served: 4,000
Grade Level/Age: Age 7-19
Students with Minority Background: 47% Latino, 37% African American/Black, 13% Asian, 3% White
Number of Locations: 4; 3 clubhouses (Harriman Clubhouse in the Lower East Side, Elbridge T. Gerry Clubhouse in East Harlem, Marion McMahon Abbe Clubhouse in Flushing, Queens) and 1 campsite (Camp Cromwell in Martinsville, New Jersey).
Other: 70% of members come from single-parent homes

What is the mission and history of BCNY?
BCNY was founded in 1876 by E.H. Harriman, a philanthropist and entrepreneur. On the Lower East Side of New York, Harriman saw inner-city boys in trouble, triggering his idea to get them off the streets and into a place where they would be safe, learn better manners, and engage in productive activities. BCNY’s core mission has always been to provide a safe haven from the streets, and that has remained constant. The mission has expanded over the years to encourage boys to seek moral development, academic achievement, and leadership skills.

What programs does BCNY offer and who are the students you serve?
BCNY offers a number of academic, social and recreational, and cultural enrichment programs. Some of our music students have performed at distinguished locations including Lincoln Center, Madison Square Garden, and the Apollo Theatre. Other students have won awards for film and various athletic competitions. The basic membership is $5 per year and entitles the boys to participate in most of the programs we offer. We also have a community service component in many of our programs, providing boys the opportunity to engage in community activities, as well as agency-related instruction.

Our building is open from 3-9pm during weekdays, enabling boys to come to the clubhouses after school for homework help. We refer students who are struggling to our learning centers, where staff members help the students tackle academic challenges. We also provide college prep, mentoring programs, and independent school placement support. BCNY is the oldest agency in the country to offer independent school placement services for ‘boys of promise’ for the last half-century. Many of our boys go on to independent schools through our programs, but we help all of our students get into the schools of their choice.

What are some of your current goals and priorities?
We recently welcomed a new executive director, Stephen Tosh, to BCNY. Prior to BCNY, Mr. Tosh spent ten years as Executive Director/COO of Phipps Community Development Corporation. He is focused on working with members, making sure not to lose sight of any youth in our programs. We also have a goal of strengthening our work with teenagers and developing more programs that will benefit and be more attractive to them. Another current priority is helping our members navigate their path towards college and careers. Other focuses include healthy living, guidance and mental health, and leadership training. As an organization, we are hoping to increase our outreach efforts. As the landscape of the city changes, we want to ensure we are reaching out and maintaining enrollment by developing new and exciting programs.

What partnerships does BCNY have with other organizations, schools, community groups, etc.?
Partnerships are critical, especially with the many funding cuts. Funders tend to look for organizations that partner with others. Working collaboratively is very important to BCNY. We partner with many organizations that address our same mission. We also partner with local community boards, middle schools, independent and boarding schools, the Independent School Placement Alliance (ISPA), parochial schools, colleges and universities, and sports organizations. A few examples include Pace University (which offers us the use of their theatre), Moscot Mobil Eyes (offering free testing and eyewear for our boys on the Lower East Side), the New York Knicks, and the Central Park Conservancy.

What kinds of programs and supports do you offer parents of boys in the BCNY programs?
We have two main initiatives for involving parents at BCNY. The first initiative is the EPIC program – Every Person Influences Children. We offer EPIC groups in all three clubhouses. This program empowers parents and brings them together to talk about their role in supporting youth and how they can navigate resources to benefit their children. The group discusses strategies for working with youth through the developmental stages.

The second initiative is the Parents Advisory Board, consisting of parents of boys who attend independent boarding schools. These parents often need additional supports to handle challenges including separation anxiety, transitions, and adjusting to changes their children experience. The parents support each other with transportation and carpooling to parents’ weekends, sending care packages to their sons, and more. Parents who have already experienced these challenges provide mentorship and support for new parents. Additional services offered to parents include workshops on a variety of topics such as financial aid, college placement, increasing awareness about different kinds of schools (e.g. charter, public, independent), informing parents of changes in the school systems, and tips for selecting the right school. For those who do not participate in a specific program or workshop, we provide literature at all of our locations and regularly communicate with parents via email and online. We also offer social and recreational events that provide an opportunity for parents to relax and have fun together.

Can you tell me more about BCNY’s Robert M. Gardiner School for first generation college-bound middle school students?
The Robert M. Gardiner School is a summer residential program that helps first generation college-bound junior high school boys from low-income backgrounds to reach their academic potential. One of the goals of the Gardiner School is to provide academic enrichment and reinforcement, in combination with other activities, and to curb summer learning loss.
At the Gardiner School, students concentrate on advancing their knowledge in the subject areas identified in the Common Core State Standards that have been adopted by New York and over 30 other states. These general areas include English Language Arts, science, the humanities, and mathematics. The curriculum also includes study in art, drama, and music, as well as time devoted to athletic, co-curricular, and recreational programs.

Each summer, about 130 sixth, seventh, and eighth grade boys attend a residential camp for six weeks at Camp Cromwell in Martinsville, New Jersey. The camp serves two purposes: it acts as a summer recreational day camp for boys and as an academic residential camp for Gardiner School boys. After they complete the program, we continue to work with the boys to help them navigate through high school. In addition to BCNY members, we enroll 35 day students from Somerset County. This partnership helps us to strengthen our relationship with the local community. We also generate income from the community by renting the facility. Since we are open year-round, we occasionally use our camp facility for college retreats, and for bonding and skill building activities for boys in BCNY programs. The staff utilizes the space for professional development and family/staff outings.

How do you demonstrate program impact at BCNY?
BCNY is in the process of developing research-based outcome evaluation tools to ensure programs are youth-centered and the lives of our members improve as a result of their participation. The three main areas of youth development we will use to evaluate the effectiveness of programs center on increasing social/emotional skills, maintaining or improving health and well-being, and improving academic skills and increasing vocational opportunities.

There are several questions we want to answer to demonstrate impact at BCNY: How do we measure and document the improvement and positive outcomes of programs? How do we capture this information? We want to measure the starting and ending point for each boy from BCNY, tying in all the activities and programs that helped to produce positive results while he was with us.

What supports do you offer alumni of BCNY programs?
A few years ago, we started an alumni initiative to develop a database of the several thousand alumni who have attended and had different experiences with the BCNY programs. We also developed an alumni council and society to provide services to our alumni and encourage them to give back. Our alumni are positive role models to the boys in our programs and often return to teach skills including healthy competition and teamwork. We are trying to increase alumni participation by having them tell their stories and share with others how BCNY programs affected them.

Can you give me an example of a student who has benefited from BCNY?
Edward J. Rappa: President of the BCNY Board of Trustees. Mr. Rappa attended BCNY in the 1950s and is now the President/COO of R.W. Pressprich and Company Inc. He attended Stuyvesant High School in New York and brings his passion and experience to a leadership role on the BCNY board.

Danny Garcia: Portfolio Manager and Trainer for RNBS Management and BCNY board member. Mr. Garcia grew up on the Lower East Side as the youngest of several brothers, received an opportunity to attend prep school with the help of BCNY, and is a great success today.

Valentino Carlotti: Managing Director and President of Goldman Sachs, Brazil branch. Mr. Carlotti grew up attending BCNY, attended Harvard and Yale, and is now on the boards of several nonprofit agencies including Prep for Prep and BCNY.

Raphael Cortina: Film major at Occidental. Mr. Cortina produced a documentary on the Gardiner School last summer, featuring the Teen Counselors who work at Camp Cromwell and are college students and alumni of BCNY programs.

Dennis Wallington: Author of Chasing America (2006). In his book, Mr. Wallington talks about growing up as an African-American in Harlem, where he was homeless and affected by drugs. He came to BCNY and we believed in him, helping him get into prep school at Hotchkiss. He later went to NYU to study film and is now an Emmy-Award winning television writer.

Ramon Gonzales: Founder of MS223. Recently featured on the cover of the Sunday New York Times Magazine, Mr. Gonzales started a middle school in the Mott Haven section of the South Bronx, where academic test scores have increased during his time as Principal over the last seven years. Mr. Gonzalez grew up in East Harlem and attended Cornell University and Teachers College.

Why did BCNY decide to join NPEA?
Partnerships are important. How can we have a greater impact on the youth we work with? Do we know everything? No. Can we do more? Yes. How? By learning from and working with others. We were asked to join because NPEA recognized our influence in working with independent schools. NPEA follows my personal belief in working together to be partners and make change. I believe in NPEA’s mission: we all need to collaborate in order to make greater differences for the students we serve.

 

April Member Spotlight

April 2011 Member Spotlight: Cate School in Carpinteria, CA
Interview with: Charlotte Brownlee, Director of Admission
Interviewed by: Carrie Tate, Member Services Associate
Contact Charlotte for more information.

Snapshot of the Cate School
Date founded: 1910
Total number of students: 265
Average class size: 10-12
Grade Level: 9-12
Number of faculty: 75
Number of states represented by student body: 24
Number of countries represented by student body: 16
Students of minority background: 41%
Percentage of students receiving financial aid: 30%
Percentage of students admitted to 4-year colleges: 100%

Q: Can you tell me about the mission and history of the Cate School?
Curtis Wolsey Cate, founder of the Cate School, came to California after graduating from Roxbury-Latin School in Boston and Harvard University in Cambridge, MA. Fascinated with the West Coast, he wanted to build a school that combined the long-standing traditions of academic excellence in schools on the East Coast with the spirit and adventure of the West, integrating the outdoors and the frontier spirit. The school initially started as a boys’ school in 1910 and became coeducational in 1981. The transition to a coeducational campus breathed new vitality into the student body and really helped to transform Cate into the school it is today.

Cate’s mission: Through commitment, scholarship, companionship, and service, each member of the Cate community contributes to what our founder called: the spirit of this place...all compounded of beauty and virtue, quiet study, vigorous play, and hard work. Our school seeks to prepare students for college, while giving them the freedom to learn and experience things in a unique way. The word commitment says a lot about the spirit of Cate; it is understood that Cate’s students bring a dedication to participating on campus and giving of themselves in a committed way. This commitment and spirit is shared by Cate’s faculty. The average teacher tenure is over twenty years, which is a huge part of defining the character of the school. The school’s small size is also a critical piece in illustrating who we are; students become known not for labels but for the many facets of their personalities and interests.

Q: What unique programs does the Cate School offer that you would like to highlight to NPEA members?
Cate School recently became one of six United States schools that are members of Global Round Square. Global Round Square is an association of more than 80 schools around the world that are committed to a shared set of ideals in empowering youth to become committed, responsible, global citizens. Beyond the preparation for college, these schools share a special emphasis on service-learning, global understanding, environmental stewardship, democracy, cultural exchange, and leadership. The association is set up to facilitate school direct exchanges between schools on different continents. More information on Global Round Square is available at www.roundsquare.org.

Cate School has also offered students several collaborative service-learning opportunities, including a public service project in Bogota, Colombia. There, the students worked with a school to help them build a new playground. Cate School students also partnered on a project with Chadwick School, another Round Square member, working in a soup kitchen in Santa Barbara and engaging in discussions around issues of poverty.

Q: How does the Cate School encourage diversity on campus, and how has this evolved over time?
The culture at Cate School is very student-driven. Many times, things evolve on campus because students want them to happen. Many clubs and activities reflect what we do to encourage diversity, including our Latino and black student unions, our GLBT group, and others. We are thrilled we have been able to encourage safe spaces and support student-driven organizations like these.

Cate School has also had a Director of Diversity for the last seven years, which has helped us in carrying out our long-term commitment to diversity on campus. We have a celebration each year on MLK Day, during which the students determine the content and facilitate the day’s activities, focusing on topics of identity, appreciating differences, and understanding each other.

Due in part to the school’s small size, Cate School students tend to cluster more by personalities rather than by identity groups. During their freshman and sophomore years, students participate in a year-long human development program, facilitated by a group of staff who work out of our Department of Human Development. One of the goals of this program is to help students understand their role living in a small community and as citizens of the world. They learn how to lead a healthy and balanced lifestyle, and they contribute to discussions around tolerating and embracing differences. The class is successful in helping students become open and comfortable talking about themselves. We offer several other programs and classes that encourage dialogue around topics of difference and individuality. There is a strong faculty and student buy-in to the idea of individuality on campus, and this curiosity about oneself and one’s peers is an important trait sought by admissions counselors in selecting new students.

Q: How do you recruit underserved students? What type of ongoing supports do you offer underrepresented students after they enroll?
A lot of our recruitment efforts are made possible through our partnerships with other organizations. We only have four admissions staff at our school, so we depend on our partners like The Teak Fellowship, The Steppingstone Foundation, A Better Chance, Daniel Murphy Scholarship Foundation, Breakthrough Silicon Valley, Young Eisner Scholars, Queen City Foundation, Rainier Scholars, and other organizations to help identify students who might be a good fit at the Cate School. We have made an effort in the last few years to expand these partnerships, and we will continue our commitment to building more relationships and expanding our reach to new schools and programs.

Our Director of Diversity, Bryan Rodriguez, has helped us build a strong system of support for students after they enroll at Cate. He has also developed programming and training to help the faculty build strong skills for working with students from diverse backgrounds. We have structured our advising system to ensure that each faculty member has 6 advisees, and Bryan acts as a secondary advisor to the students. During the first faculty meeting of the year, the advisors talk about each of their advisees and report on how they are doing with transitions, academics, making friends, etc. Some seniors live in the dorms of younger students and look out for transition issues as well. The whole school sees it as their responsibility to make sure everyone is transitioning well into the community. We have found that the support needs change over time. While earlier in a student’s experience at Cate, the supports tend to be geared towards the students, later on there often become challenges helping the family understand what the students are going through.

Q: What are some of your school’s top priorities for 2011?
This year, we are placing a big focus on curriculum study and redesign, with a goal of developing a clear set of grade-level expectations. We are also developing a new program for seniors that will enable them to pursue academic subjects in depth through independent study, which will allow them to display individuality and scholarship outside of a set curriculum.

In addition, we are in the early stages of a creating a new strategic plan, after coming to the end of our last ten-year plan. In our last plan, we wrote in a commitment to diversity, which specified that every year we would increase the percentage of tuition revenue that goes toward financial aid by .25%. Next year, 22.5% of tuition revenue will go towards financial aid. This helps us immensely in our commitment to socio-economic and racial/ethnic diversity. We have had a lot of success in increasing diversity within our student body, but we would like to attract a teacher population that reflects the student population in diversity, so that will be one of our priorities moving forward.

Q: In what ways does Cate outreach with the local community and various partnerships and organizations? Do you have specific public purpose initiatives on campus?
Cate School’s motto is Servons, let us serve. We do not set a target for people to be involved in public service, but nearly 100% of our students participate in public service of sorts. The local community has been helpful in building relationships and providing service opportunities for our students. Each Tuesday night, several students work with mentally and handicapped adults in the Santa Barbara, which is a program that has been in place for many years and is well received by both our students and the adults with whom they work. We have also established a long-term relationship with an organization in Mexico called Los Niños, which has enabled cultural and service exchange in orphanages in Tijuana and Mexicali. We make these opportunities available to all of students, and for those with economic barriers, we work to find the funding to enable them to participate.

One of our long-term goals is to increase our public purpose initiatives on campus. In the summer, we have had a relationship with the Music Academy of the West, but we are actively trying to look at how we use the campus in the summer to find additional ways to host educational access opportunities. We have been in conversation with Stanford about potentially hosting a Sustainability Institute during the summer. One of our short-term goals is to design programming to expose kids to possibilities in education by using our campus and faculty.

We partner with an organization in Ghana called the Right to Dream Academy, and we currently have two boys from this school attending Cate School. These two students are incredible scholars and talented soccer players. The organization plans to start an academy for girls and we are hoping to bring in girls from those communities as well. As one of five schools hosting students through this organization, our community has learned invaluable lessons from these boys in terms of ethics, obligations, and responsibility. We look forward to continuing our relationship with the Right to Dream Academy and are grateful to have these two students through their four years at Cate.

Q: Why did you become an NPEA member?
We support this organization because we are all working for the same thing – providing life changing educational opportunities to the widest array of students. Many of our partners are members of NPEA. We love the idea of things we can learn from other independent schools and organizations that are working on college access. There are so many different areas in which our school can benefit and learn from other programs and schools, and we love the idea of sharing what we have learned, too.