The Role of Community-based Organizations Serving Youth in the Out-of School Time

A Forum — February 18, 2005

This forum concludes AYPF’s five-part series sponsored by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation on issues in out-of-school time (OST) programming. Whereas the fourth forum featured efforts of large, voluntary organizations—Boys & Girls Clubs, Girls Scouts of the USA, 4-H, Camp Fire, and YMCA of the USA—to serve older, harder-to-serve teens through constructive, out-of-school time activities, this forum featured the work of small, community-based organizations and programs each serving approximately 50 young people in the out-of-school time.

The National Research Council and Institute of Medicine’s 2002 report, Community Programs to Promote Youth Development describes program environments that promote positive development outcomes for youth. These environments provide: physical and psychological safety; appropriate structure, with clear expectations for behavior as well as increasing opportunities to make decisions; supportive relationships; opportunities to belong; positive social norms; support for efficacy and mattering; opportunities for skill building; and integration of family, school and community efforts.

Against this research backdrop, the out-of-school time providers in this forum discussed features of their programs that promote positive youth outcomes. They discussed the conditions in their communities which gave impetus to the particular focus of their programs, the characteristics and needs of the young people served, sources of funding, and their relationships with schools, families and the communities they serve. Presenters included: Chris Myers, Executive Director, and Cornesha Ward, Participant, Sunflower County Freedom Project, Sunflower, MS; Sonya Clark-Herrera, Executive Director, East Palo Alto Mural Art Project (MAP),CA; and Spencer H. Holland, Executive Director, PROJECT 2000, Washington, DC.

Sunflower County Freedom Project

The Sunflower County Freedom Project (SCFP) is sited in the town of Sunflower, MS, (population 800), in Sunflower County (population 33,000) located in the northern Delta region. SCFP is an independent non-profit organization dedicated to educational excellence and leadership development in Sunflower County. SCFP was inspired by the original Freedom Schools of the 1960s designed to challenge the prevailing culture of Mississippi reflected in the local media of that time that spoke of black inferiority. According to Myers, the SCFP challenges the materialism, anti-intellectualism, and victimization that limit black achievement and positions young people as “disadvantaged.” The program’s goal is to produce academically capable, socially conscious, mentally disciplined young people able to succeed in college. The focus is on tangible outcomes such as higher grades and student test scores, but also on intangible qualities such as developing self-confidence, a greater sense of discipline, the motivation to succeed, and a greater sense of possibility and adaptability.

Founded in 1998 by Sunflower County residents and Teach for America members working in the area, SCFP uses the history and spirit of the 1960s freedom struggle to motivate young people to become capable, compassionate, college-bound leaders in their communities; to break out of the mind set of “Jim Crow”; and to challenge many of the prevailing expectations for them. It does this through a six-year fellowship program that follows students from the seventh grade through high school. According to Executive Director Chris Myers, “During this process, students learn to love themselves and the program, they participate in positive leadership activities and discover self-discipline—a contrast to the corporal punishment still used in local schools. They learn that education is not just acquired in the classroom and set aside, but must be applied through service and in everyday settings.

The fellowship combines intensive academic enrichment, including after-school study sessions, year-round tutoring and mentoring, a Saturday School, and a six-week summer program with a variety of youth development opportunities as the young people progress through the six-year fellowship. In the summer, first-year students participate in intensive academics, followed by a tour of civil rights states. In addition to intensive academics, second- and third-year students participate in a performance tour. In the past, fourth-year students were assigned public service internships with non-profit groups in Washington, DC; this year, they will participate in an exchange program with a charter school in Los Angeles. The fifth and sixth year students will work with the SCFP to attain employment and set up bank accounts so that they can save money for college.

Activities are strategically geared toward specific outcomes such as mental and physical discipline through the practice of Tae Kwon Do. The fellows learn history, build confidence and develop communication skills as they create and perform scenes from the Mississippi freedom struggle. Leadership and organizational skills are honed on camping trips. Specific skills are developed such as video production in media production class. Horizons are expanded through educational travel—historical tours, camping trips and college visits—and exchange programs.

Fellow Cornesha Ward said she joined the SCFP to experience new things. According to Ward, “There is nothing else in Sunflower to do. Also, schools don’t teach things like the civil rights movement.”

Myers indicated that because there are no Boys & Girls Clubs or other outlets for youth in the county, the SCFP has had to become more comprehensive. Two-thirds of the funding for the program comes from national foundations, the remainder is from individual contributions and local fundraising. The SCFP receives no government funding. The board of directors is comprised of half students and half parents.

Myers provided the following suggesting for OST funders:

• Give community-based organizations (CBOs) a chance. Schools often shut CBOs out of 21st Century Community Learning Centers (CCLC) funds.
• Support long-term solutions, not just new projects. Providing on-going support to established organizations is essential.
• Think about the practical needs of organizations. CBOs need funds for staff, not just new initiatives.
• Be flexible—allow organizations to use grants to meet their needs. Imposing requirements for specific collaborations or inducements for special projects can be counter productive.
• Visit programs and see first-hand what they are doing; understand their strengths and needs.

East Palo Alto Mural Art Project (MAP)

MAP is an arts-based youth development project whose mission is to educate, empower and inspire youth through the arts. Founded in March 2001, as a summer program to generate positive youth outcomes through connections with public art and to show that teens are a positive resource for their community, MAP has since expanded, offering after-school programs for teens year-round.

According to Executive Director Clark-Herrera, teens in East Palo Alto face a variety of difficult challenges. Many of the local public and private institutions have failed the young people and there is a dearth of resources. Despite its proximity to Stanford University five miles away, the East Palo Alto public schools have a 70% dropout rate. The community is isolated from positive role models, beset with violence, substance abuse and drug trafficking. Single parent or grandparent-headed families are the norm. The community has high welfare dependency and high rates of early child bearing. There are large numbers of children and youth in foster care. Teens lack the social networks and social capital necessary for successful youth development.

The Teen Mural Program provides employment opportunities for 25 disadvantaged teens for 14 weeks to research, design and install murals. Participants learn or strengthen and apply reading, writing, mathematics, presenting, drawing, painting and video production skills. They develop job skills while earning nine dollars per hour for participation three days per week and contribute financially to their families. Participation provides opportunities for personal development while contributing to the visual enhancement of the community. Youth also receive validation of their worth from peers, family and community. Because this is community-focused research, teens gain knowledge about and pride in the history of the area. This is important since there are no neighborhood high schools and the youth are bussed out of the neighborhood.

Clark-Herrera noted that because of participation in the program, many of the young people have the funds to purchase needed school supplies. “Recruitment is easy when you offer employment,” she said. Participation provides a measure of financial independence. Because teens receive remuneration, parents support their children’s involvement in OST activities. This is critical to offset the competing expectations many parents have for their girls to remain at home to take care of younger siblings and for the boys to work.

New programs include History Through Art (HTA) and an expanded spoken-word poetry component, History through Hip Hop (HHH). HTA is designed to improve academic performance for 7th and 8th grade student participants by employing an interdisciplinary thematic teaching curriculum to reinforce various California State Board of Education Standards. Older teens work with junior high school students facilitating art classes and teaching community history and local college-based artists and art educators serve as role models. HHH uses the genre of hip-hop to help low-performing at-risk students in grades nine through twelve learn and bring history alive. Youth explore hip-hop’s academic aspects through research, writing, practicing rhymes and participating in literary workshops. The goal is to build literacy, presentational and production skills. Stanford University provides studio time and students have developed their own CDs.

To date, over 200 teens have served the community in summer and after-school programs. Three mural programs have been offered each year since 2001. Two mural programs are offered after school and one during the summer. The HHH and HTA programs, which run for twelve weeks, are offered twice a year after school.

To implement its program, MAP relies on other community organizations for in-kind support. Collaborating organizations include: the Boys & Girls Club of the Peninsula, San Mateo County, providing staff and in-kind facilities; local law firms providing space for board meetings and access to office equipment/operations; the Ravenswood City School District in East Palo Alto, allows the Mural Project to paint their school buildings and provides funds through the 21st CCLC program; and the John W. Gardner Center for Youth & Their Communities at Stanford University, School of Education provides program assessment and staff development support. Funding for the program comes from individuals (40%), corporations (17%) and foundations (19%). MAP currently does not receive any direct government funding. Twenty-first CCLC funding is used by the local school district to fund approximately eight percent of MAP programming.

PROJECT 2000

PROJECT 2000 was established in 1994 to provide educational mentoring and academic support services to inner-city African-American youth, particularly African-American males, from the first through twelfth grades. The program was first implemented as an in-school program at Stanton Elementary School in Washington, DC in the fall of 1988 when the graduating class of 2000 entered first grade. During the Elementary School Phase (1988-1994), PROJECT 2000 was sponsored by the Washington, DC Chapter of Concerned Black Men, which recruited and trained adult male volunteers, particularly African-American men, to serve as Teacher Assistants (TAs) in the classrooms of this group of children. In 1994, when the class of 2000 entered seventh grade, it became necessary to create a fully-staffed organization to develop and implement the Secondary School Phase: to provide sustained educational mentoring and academic support for these young people from the seventh through twelfth grades, and beyond, with an emphasis on preparing them to enter college.

The organization has since established its program facility in the Woodland Terrace Housing Project which provides a rent- and utilities-free lease to an 8-room facility in which the program has installed a computer lab and space for homework and research activities. It is here that the young people meet from 3:30 – 6 or 7 p.m. during the week.

Executive Director Holland discussed the impetus for the program and the rational behind its components. Because African-American boys are the most underserved population in U.S. education, his focus has been on addressing the failure rate of urban African- American males through an out-of-school time curriculum focused on reading, writing and passing Algebra. He noted that there are thousands of African American males in prisons today who read on the fourth grade level. Holland says he has no problem with the school curriculum—“if they would just do it, but when the schools don’t, then community programs must.” He has hired a staff of professionals “who teach what the day teachers did not teach in core academic areas.” Additionally, providing program services in the community where the young people live is integral to the PROJECT 2000 concept for engaging inner-city boys in educational activities outside the school.

Program components include: required study hall 3:30 – 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday with adult and peer tutors available to assist scholars with homework assignments, test-taking, skills development, and other academic supports; a Saturday Academy from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. which includes math and reading tutorials, scholar forum activities, field trips, SAT Prep workshops and other activities; mentoring and continuous monitoring of the scholar’s academic progress; attendance and citizenship (in school and community); Personal Development Seminars (e.g., Behavioral Health, Interpersonal Skills Development which focuses on issues relevant to Black inner-city adolescents living in high-risk environments; and leadership development); a six-week summer session for all new seventh grade scholars designed to bridge the transition to junior high school; and Community Service. Program staff strategically channel program scholars to the best secondary school environments, whether regular, citywide high schools and academy programs, charter or private schools.

Students are invited to join the program and are referred to as “scholars.” Parents must sign a contract committing their children to participate in all components of the program, attend regularly; establishing homework study hours for scholars at home; and permitting the school to share student progress data with program staff. To remain in the program, scholars must maintain a minimum 2.5 grade point average, a citizenship grade of C+ in school (citizenship ratings are also determined by how student scholars adhere to the standards of conduct set by PROJECT 2000), and have no unexcused absences or tardiness from school, or expulsions. The program has a full girls’ component, but the boys and girls are physically separated. The program also includes a parent involvement component. Program staff visit scholars’ homes and their schools, maintaining continuous communication. To date, PROJECT 2000 has graduated 25 scholars who have stayed throughout the full six-year program.

The program is supported through a variety of funding sources, including the U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) program, DC Children and Youth Trust Investment Corporation, the DC Housing Authority (providing space for the program), and private donors.

Discussion

In the discussion that followed the presentations, forum participants asked about parent involvement, how student voice is represented in the programs, student follow-up efforts, increasing the scale and opportunities for program replicability, and the challenges of working with local schools.

Parent Involvement and Student Voice

According to Myers, parents are part of the SCFP interview process and students make up half of the program’s governing board. There are also specific programs to which parents are invited. In PROJECT 2000, parents sign contacts which allow the program to have access to students’ academic records. When program staff make home visits, parents want to know how they can be helpful. The program currently has a social worker to help address parent and family needs. Project scholars are also involved in program planning and peer tutoring.

Working with Local Schools

Myers indicated that the staff in the state education agency have been supportive of the program, but this has not translated to the local level where support has been inconsistent. “While individual teachers and administrators have offered verbal support, overall there has not been much concrete support. For example, a principal will say that we can come into the school to make a presentation to prospective students, but then will consistently delay our arrival until it is almost too late to recruit students. Then, when we are allowed in, it is only to speak to a small group of students. This has happened more than once, and it reflects the sort of surface support with subsurface sabotage with which we must contend.” He indicated that they have considered turning the project into a charter school, but feel that Mississippi’s charter law is too restrictive.

Support to Youth Once They Graduate

PROJECT 2000 has an alumni council and also hires program graduates as tutors and mentors (five cohorts have graduated). Additionally, the program promises $1,000 college scholarships to their graduates in increments of $100 per month, providing they maintain a 2.5 GPA. Program staff also interacts with the students’ colleges and continues to track students, providing advice and support.

Clark-Herrera indicated that her program is too new to have alumni, but added that the young people are in contact with her staff constantly for advice and direction. The program also offers SAT prep, but she noted that few of the young people are qualified for admission to California colleges based on the courses they take in high school. This is why the program has been extended into the middle grades to try to influence the young people before course-taking patterns narrow their options.

Like the Mural Art Project, the Sunflower County Freedom Project is too young to have alumni, but Myers indicated that they are now using high school seniors as instructors in the Tae Kwan Do class and will use graduates in the summer program.

Addressing the General Malaise of 14-18 Year Olds

Clark-Herrera conceded that many youth are disconnected. The do not have “role models from their communities who work and participate in productive endeavors. Education and the value of work are values that must be taught and handed down from adults they trust. After-school programs represent one way of doing this for young people who other wise lack these supports.”
Myers indicated that the problem is that parents and adults try to compensate for not being there for their kids and giving them direction they need by providing them with material props. When this happens, youth are lucky when there are options such as after-school programs to provide this direction.

Holland indicated that too many 13- through 16-year olds have parents who are in their late 20’s and early 30s, and he continued that we are not child-oriented society. “When our child-oriented institutions—families and schools—are not functioning well, community-based programs and out-of-school time programs must take up the slack,” he said. The problem is that there are too few of these opportunities for older youth.

Scale and Program Replicability

According to Myers, there comes a point when scale becomes a problem. For program success, you must have a committed, qualified staff working with a small number of young people. This is the hardest part to replicate. He currently has 50 young people in his program, which may grow to 75 youth. The solution Myers sees is to go to a pod framework which keeps the same staff-to-youth ratio and maintains the quality.

Clark-Herrera indicated that her program is replicable and she has posted most of its elements on her website. The problem is that schools have large classes. Young people, such as those she serves, need intense relationships with knowledgeable adults in settings where they can explore their interests and learn.

Holland has 52 young people in his program. He would like to see the program replicated at other housing projects.

Sources

Block, A & Weisz, V. “Choosing Prisoners Over Pupils.” washingtonpost.com Tuesday, July 6, 2004, p. A19. Retrieved 3/22/05 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A29806-2004Jul5?language=printer.

Holland, S.H. (November 15, 2003) “The State of the African American Male.” Public Testimony, Congressional Black Caucus Hearing. Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC.

National Research Council and Institute of Medicine (2001) Community Programs to Promote Youth Development. Committee on Community-Level Programs for Youth. Jacquelynne Eccles and Jennifer A. Gootman, eds. Board on Children, Youth, and Families, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

American Youth Policy Forum   1836 Jefferson Place NW,  Washington DC 20036
Telephone 202-775-9731      |      Fax 202-775-9733      |     Email aypf@aypf.org