Community Schools and Partnerships to Improve Learning and Services for Children and Youth Kansas City (MO)

An American Youth Policy Forum Field Trip — October 29-31, 2000

The field trip held in conjunction with the Coalition for Community Schools National Conference "Building the Movement for Community Schools" provided insight into this movement, how it is evolving in states and localities, as well as opportunities to learn about community partnerships designed to improve education and service outcomes for children and youth. Field trip participants from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, and 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program; Health and Human Services Regional Administration for Children and Family Programs; the office of Senator Christopher Bond; the House Committee on Education and the Workforce; the District of Columbia Public Schools; and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation:

• Attended conference activities highlighting models, such as Beacons, Children’s Aid Society (CAS) community schools, California After School Partnerships, the United Way’s Bridges to Success, and Communities in Schools. (See AYPF field trip report, "Community School and Beacon Models in New York City," March 1, 2000 for a discussion of a CAS school, and a Beacon).

• Explored issues affecting community and after-school programming (such as sustainability, financing, the capacity of organizations to implement these programs, managing and governing partnerships) with practitioners and policymakers.

• Visited two community schools--McCoy Elementary School, an exemplary school located in a high-poverty neighborhood, utilizing extensive community partnerships and funding sources to improve academic achievement, provide health services and parent outreach activities, including a home visitation program--and Van Horn High School, which functions as the hub of much-needed community development activities and services in Independence, Missouri.

• Met with key community and professional leaders of LINC (the Local Investment Commission), a citizen-driven community collaborative involving efforts by the state of Missouri to work with neighborhood leaders, citizens, business, civic and labor leaders to improve the lives of children and families in Kansas City and Jackson County.

LINC Overview

Kansas City’s Local Investment Commission provides the support structure for the community, extended-service schools and for other community-based activities. LINC is involved in initiatives to provide employment to those on welfare, create new businesses in the central city, improve the delivery of human services and help improve the lives of families and children. It is the Community Partnership selected by the state of Missouri to administer the Caring Communities fund created by seven state departments to support and develop school-linked, neighborhood-based services.

The concept behind LINC began when Gary Stangler, head of the State Department of Social Services, convened a business roundtable in 1992 that resulted in an experiment in Jackson County to give a group of citizens the power to reform social services. In 1993, Caring Communities funds were approved by the state—the initiative providing funds and other services--and the State Children’s Trust was created. A local foundation provided funds to support an executive director and staff were detailed from state offices to support the work of LINC. As explained by Executive Director Gayle A. Hobbs, "LINC works to create a process in the community whereby a common vision of services can be created and implemented. It allows local communities to design how their own services are provided with help and support from LINC." For example, LINC has helped organize the siting of a number of public service agencies throughout communities and 60 schools, 20 of which are Caring Communities sites. Through the partnership with the public schools, it is now possible to ensure that all children receive necessary services, such as vaccinations.

As an intermediary, LINC’s work involves financing community efforts and linking of public funds. LINC staff determines what work needs to be done in areas defined by the communities and identifies funding to address those needs. In some cases, LINC has requested moving state funds for program administration and indirect sources to provide grants for local providers. LINC works to help level the playing field, to ensure that the most obvious and best-positioned service providers are used, and that there is alignment between public dollars spent and specific outcomes achieved. Hobbs currently has 30 staff and at one point relied on 18 funding sources to support them. Staffing is highly flexible and built to conform to community needs. As a result, a number of positions are contracted out.

Meeting with Social Services Administrators and Community Leaders

Field trip participants learned about community-based welfare-to-work strategies with representatives from the Missouri Division of Family Services, Full Employment Council (Private Industry Council), the LINC welfare to work co-chair and LINC Commissioners.

Community-based Welfare-to-Work Strategies. Among the problems facing public and private agencies are:

• How to address the needs of the working poor and help them to succeed.
• How to change a welfare-to-work system focused mainly on pre-employment to refocus on post-employment needs under the work-first requirements of the Workforce Investment Act and TANF.
• How, even in a strong economy with low unemployment, to address the remaining barriers to employment of child care and transportation. The latter is a special problem since Kansas City is very spread out over a land mass of 320 square miles, many jobs are in the suburbs and many of the neediest people live in the inner city.

There are 80,000 people in Jackson County making less than $18,000 for a family of three—many of these family members are working in at least two jobs. These people are not counted as unemployed, and are eligible for services through Caring Communities.

LINC’s efforts to bring together public agencies and community-based organizations with common interests and needs has resulted in a number of tailored, more effective approaches to the delivery of social services.

For example:

• A waiver was requested and provided by the federal government, allowing local welfare funds to be used for subsidies to employers hiring previously dependent people in the community. Because of the commitment to provide a rational approach in line with local realities, federal program initiatives have been placed in state agencies where they are most effective.

• Efforts have been made to eliminate duplication and improve effectiveness of community services by encouraging public agencies to share the work with non-profit organizations and using them for activities for which they are best suited and most effective. Co-location of all principal community-based organizations (CBOs) and public agencies was a reality even before the advent of federally mandated One-stops (a delivery system of information on training, providers and other services for eligible individuals under the Workforce Investment Act coordinated at one or more physical centers). Services have become more neighborhood-based through Caring Communities.

• New ways of income maintenance have been designed and tailored to the needs of those clients who: (a) are work-ready and need little help in accessing employment, (b) need help in accessing employment, and (c) need long-term education and support. The Departments of Employment and Human Services have adopted the same wage, retention and employment outcomes. Human Services has been allowed to focus on case worker services, while the Employment Service has been able to put funds into vouchers for housing and transportation. Using research and focus groups, strategies have been developed for addressing the needs of non-custodial parents (mostly males) and more appropriate child support enforcement has been developed.

These changes have allowed the community to work on their priorities based on needs determined through research, and for LINC to monitor outcomes and progress in addressing these needs. As a result, the welfare rolls have been cut, from 15,000 to 6,000 families. Even though the welfare roles are going down, the agency representatives and LINC commissioners stressed that funds are still needed to provide the supports to continue to keep the economy viable.

The Role of Community-based Organizations. A dialogue with members of community-based organizations--YouthNet, Midwest Center for Non-Profit Leadership, and Kansas City Church Community Organizing--provided information on how community- and university-based organizations work with public agencies and LINC to provide and improve services for young people in Kansas City. Their combined efforts help to establish a network of support, monitoring and assessment, and quality improvements in youth serving organizations.

Youth Net was founded in 1988 as a community response to drugs and violence in the community and created many programs focused on outreach and youth development activities. Its objective is to ensure that every Kansas City youth has access to safe places, caring adults and positive developmental activities. Since quality youth programs can only be available when youth outcomes are clearly defined, YouthNet’s efforts focus on:

• setting standards of quality performance for youth programs with involvement from young people, parents, youth-serving agencies, funders and other community stakeholders;
• providing training and educating youth workers to understand the elements of positive youth development; and
• developing a fair process to monitor and assess youth-serving agencies according to the standards of quality youth development programs they have helped to establish.

YouthNet is part of a set of intermediary organizations, along with funders, that are helping to build the infrastructure for the field of youth work. Since LINC does not have the resources to provide training and work on quality indicators in the field of youth service, these activities are contracted to YouthNet and The Francis Institute (which primarily focuses on early childhood development). YouthNet helps youth workers develop youth assets, increase their preparation, and use youth development principles in their work. Building on the National School Age Care Alliance (NSACA) standards of quality school-age care, YouthNet has added youth development principles to create program standards appropriate to teenagers. These standards guide youth workers in developing the kinds of programs that attract teens, support leadership development, and provide career advice and planning for their future. See www.kcyouthnet.org to learn more about YouthNet and the standards.

The Midwest Center for Non-Profit Leadership is a virtual training resource center whose purpose is to enhance the performance and effectiveness of individuals and organizations in the nonprofit sector, through high quality community-focused education, applied research, problem solving and service. The Center works with LINC to organize professional development activities for community-based organizations and help build the capacity of intermediaries to manage systems change. The Center is a part of the L.P. Cookingham Institute of Public Affairs in the Henry W. Bloch School of Business and Public Administration, University of Missouri at Kansas City.

Kansas City Church Community Organizing (CCO) develops leadership in faith-based organizations to seek solutions to issues identified by local communities. CCO uses a faith-based commitment as a method for organizing people to tackle problems in their communities. They consider this their added value to LINC.

In response to community concerns, CCO has begun to focus on alleviating problems in the public schools. For example, when efforts were underway to cut the school transportation budget, LINC and CCO worked to ensure safe passages for students as the school system moved from a structure that relied on bussing students to one that utilizes neighborhood schools. CCO members work at six Caring Community sites to help staff think as community organizers in developing the art of collaboration with other agencies and community resources. CCO members helped parents of an elementary school at the bottom of the achievement scale look into models of successful schools in other parts of the state. With CCO support, parents visited Wichita to look at an Edison model school, ultimately organizing with teachers to develop a local Edison Partnership model. At another school, parents organized to have a house associated with drug dealers torn down. At another, CCO worked with parents to advocate for and get better street lighting around the school.

LINC and Extended Day Programming in the Schools

The Extended Day program is operated by the LINC in partnership with the Kansas City Missouri School District (KCMSD) and financed by the Missouri Division of Social Services, Title I funds, private donations, parent fees and in-kind donations by the KCMSD. Families pay modest fees for enrollment in the program. Those families who are eligible for free lunch receive Extended Day services free of charge. Other families pay fees on a sliding scale based on income, but no more than $30.00 per week for full-time care. Each school has the option to continue to operate its own program or to receive services from a licensed child care provider. All Extended Day programs are to be available from 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on all days that school is in session; however, schools have the option to open programs earlier and close them later to accommodate working families.

LINC supports 60 sites; 20 of them are Caring Communities sites. Funds from the state come through TANF for after-care at schools.

The LINC monitors each program's quality. Those schools that operate their own programs must meet quality standards regarding student-to-staff ratio; daily snacks; staff qualifications and training; and, developmentally appropriate programming. Ongoing staff training is provided by the Francis Child Development Institute.

McCoy Elementary School

The visit to McCoy Elementary School must be appreciated within the larger context of a school system that is experiencing a number of radical changes. In the past year, the school system has been released from the control of a federal judge, the result of a desegregation suit filed in the late 1970s that brought about the development of a series of magnet schools designed to attract non-minority students voluntarily to the city’s schools.

After many years of considerable state funding for the school system for an extensive building program, transportation system, and low student-teacher ratios, the district was stripped of its accreditation by the Missouri State Board of Education for failing to meet any of 11 state standards for performance, including standardized test scores, college entrance exams, reading levels, attendance and dropout rates. With the end of bussing, Kansas City is rediscovering the concept of neighborhood schools, rebuilding the notion of schools as the hub of communities, reinstituting community activities, and placing a greater focus on extended learning activities and for children and youth.

McCoy is not one of the newer school buildings. It is housed in a three-story brick building built in 1914 located in the historic northeast area of Kansas City. It has a diverse 331-student body reflecting seven foreign countries of origin in kindergarten through 5th grade. One-quarter of the student body is classified as limited English proficient, with Vietnamese or Spanish languages spoken in the home. The student body is 49 percent Latino, 25 percent Caucasian, 19 percent African American, and 7 percent Asian. The school has a student mobility rate of 7 percent. Eighty-five percent of students qualify for free or reduced price lunch and 18 percent receive special education services.

McCoy has the benefit of stable leadership in principal Jolynn Nemeth who has been at her post for seven years and a seasoned faculty. The school has won numerous awards and grants. Support from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation has helped to build the library and provide for faculty trips to visit other successful schools, such as those in District II in New York City.

The school community has articulated a clear vision of literacy attainment as its foremost goal. The layout and furnishing of the school are designed to create a homely atmosphere with rugs, rocking chairs, bean bags--all designed to support the focus on literacy. Students may utilize the hallways during independent reading time, colorful boxes are provided on each student’s desk for storing reading materials, and lots of time is set aside in the day for all types of reading—silent, aloud, directed, group and individual conferencing with each child. All classroom teachers are required to implement a daily minimum of two and a half hours combined time for reading and writing and every child is expected to read 30 specific grade level books and an additional 20 books of their own choosing.

The goal is to "conference" twice a week with each child. Instructional strategies include lots of open-ended questions to focus on the big idea. Other reading activities include "Power Lunch" with adult volunteers who read to children during the lunch period, cross-grade "Reading Buddies," and Reading Recovery for first graders. McCoy is implementing a standards-based instructional comprehensive school reform demonstration model (America’s Choice) and rubrics are boldly displayed on the walls of classrooms so that each student knows the standards against which their work will be measured and how to revise their work to score higher in reading, math and writing.

This focused effort on instruction and learning has resulted in good student results on state tests. The principal is confident that McCoy could be an accredited school if the state gave individual school (as opposed to district) accreditation.

As a Caring Communities site, the school provides comprehensive wrap-around services that center on the whole child, family and neighborhood. The school leadership works in partnership with the Department of Parks and Recreation, community organizations, families and local and national programs to provide these services, including a counseling program, before and after-school care administered by LINC, mentoring and tutoring through the 4-H Club, and a health clinic which services all students and their siblings, including providing referrals for mental health services. A new collaborative with a for-profit dental service will provide students services using Medicaid funds and a partnership with Lens Crafters ensures that students receive routine eye exams.

The school has a PANDA Wellness Center offering primary care, routine physicals, immunizations, treatment of flu/viruses, laboratory services and vision, hearing and dental screening. A licensed clinical social worker and youth outreach worker also are available. A minority health grant is designed to reduce cardiovascular diseases by helping students and their families focus on the symptoms and lifestyles that contribute to diabetes, hypertension, asthma and heart disease and to help them (especially new immigrants) feel comfortable using the health system. A retired physician comes in two times a month to conduct physicals and to serve as a role model to the children. The fifth grade curriculum includes strategies to help children make better health choices and develop a healthy lifestyle.

Though there is no formal parent coordinator assigned to the school, volunteers function as unofficial coordinators acting as translators for other parents and facilitating communications between parents and staff. Ever mindful of improving the instructional and comprehensive services, the school leadership is looking into the possibility of becoming a university lab school (i.e., a school/university partnership in which the school functions as a site for teacher professional development, student and staff service activities, research opportunities, etc.).

During a wrap-up discussion with the principal, faculty members and community partners, the following components were offered as important to creating a successful school environment:

• Sustained leadership and a principal willing to go out to get whatever is needed through grant writing and creative partnerships.
• A stable, small cohesive staff willing to work long hours and weekends to do what it takes to get the job done.
• A vision shared by the faculty and community.
• A flat organizational structure where everybody does everything.
• The commitment that if it is okay for the students, then it is okay to do it.

Van Horn High School

Van Horn High School, located in the Kansas City suburb of Independence, has a student body of 935; about half of which is Caucasian and half African American. Prior to desegregation, the composition of the neighborhood was predominantly blue collar, Caucasian. Under bussing, most of neighborhood students were bussed into Kansas City and many African American students from Kansas City were bussed to Independence. About the same time, a number of industries started to leave the area, taking away much needed jobs for community residents. Over the last 20 years the community has witnessed a reduction in housing values, a loss of community services (the closest hospital is 17 miles away), a rise in drug trafficking, and little or no development of youth and family-serving resources, such as parks, Boys and Girls Clubs, or YMCAs. There is little or no public transportation in the area.

In the 1990s, after the end of court-ordered bussing, Van Horn was designated as a community school and a Caring Community Center—part of an overall plan to revitalize the neighborhood and provide on-site community services, including a year-round health clinic, family service social workers and a job developer. The on-site social workers provide counseling in substance abuse prevention and referrals to counselors and social workers for cluster elementary schools. Most referrals relate to housing availability and childcare. A women’s support group is also a part of the Center.

Partnering agencies include LINC, Heart of America Family Services of America, Truman Medical Center East, Northwest Communities Development Corporation, WIC, Missouri Workforce Development, Kansas City, MO Public Schools, and Jackson County United Way. These partnerships have helped to bring extra-curricular activities and services into the school, such as debate teams, a school newspaper, and sports, as well as mentoring and tutoring, a year-round health clinic, family service social workers and a job developer. Also under bussing, there existed no real feeder school pattern in the area. Van Horn now functions as a resource center for services to the schools in the "cluster" feeder schools.

Van Horn’s strong community involvement has led to the creation of a 501(c)(3) community development corporation (CDC) with a $600,000 annual budget that provides a conduit for funneling new resources into the community, such as funding to surrounding elementary schools for after-school activities. The CDC has applied for a federal Weed and Seed grant in partnership with law enforcement to help remove violent offenders, drug traffickers and other criminals from the area, implement human services and neighborhood revitalization efforts to prevent and deter further crime, and support pro-active community policing activities.

Van Horn is an example of a school where neighborhood and community reform have been the energizing factors for change—not necessarily school reform. Field trip participants were told that until recently, there were only a few comprehensive neighborhood high schools and students with discipline problems at the magnet schools were "dumped" at Van Horn. The number of out-of-school suspensions had become a problem accounting for over 3,000 lost days for students. Since the state has gotten very strict in following the daily attendance of schools and tying attendance to school budgets, out-of-school suspensions had become a major impact on the school’s budget.

As a result, an in-school suspension program has been developed to address students’ psychological, social and educational needs--few have Individual Education Plans or special education assessments--and to keep them in school.

Field trip participants briefly met with the school principal Mary Long to get a better sense of the school’s academic program. Under desegregation, Van Horn had had an Engineering and Technology Magnet program, however, few remnants of that program still exist. There was also very little community buy-in and involvement in the school. Long is working to build up co-curricular activities and community support with the help of the Caring Community Center. The school is undergoing a restructuring process to create small learning communities for 9th and 10th graders. This is being done to address the high failure rate, especially among 9th graders. Upper classmen are assigned to career academies in business, arts and communications and engineering and technology.

Conclusions

Participants found the Coalition for Community Schools conference to be among the most rewarding parts of the field trip, providing opportunities to attend sessions and share information with knowledgeable individuals from across the country, including practitioners, parents, researchers and policymakers.

Field trip participants were concerned about the replicability of LINC and its role in communities in the state because so much of its success depends on the dedication and commitment of the community. LINC is a process and a role that has developed with the benefit of vision and leadership of state and local leaders and the commitment and trust   of local citizens. It was evident that establishing the many collaborations and relationships that make LINC an effective mechanism for providing services takes time, hard work and the openness and commitment to seek out creative and appropriate solutions. Participants felt that the collaboration in Kansas City can be used as a model for other cities and that LINC would be a good resource for others who are trying to accomplish similar outcomes.

LINC representatives also spoke of their concerns and challenges, such as the continual tension between the need to align agency policies and initiatives with the actual needs of communities. This has often forced agencies to provide services that are often outside their traditional purview. For example, the Department of Employment Services has been involved in providing housing vouchers as a way of reaching their goals for client employment. In some cases, the Housing Agency does not know what to do with the voucher or does not understand why Employment Services is in the housing business.

There is also the fine line that must be walked between doing what makes most sense and abiding by the concerns of government oversight agencies. According to a LINC commissioner, "You must get people to work outside the box to maximally serve people but we haven’t solved the problems of dealing with the state and federal auditors."

Finally, the group was able to observe two very different examples of community schools—each school rebuilding itself in very different ways in response to new policies affecting how schools relate to and serve their communities. As Kansas City schools realign themselves with the services and needs of their communities, they are becoming part of a new American school reform model.

Contact Information

Deborah Craig, President
YouthNet of Greater Kansas City
104 West Ninth Street, Suite 104
Kansas City, MO 64105
816-221-6900/816-221-8008
debcraig@kcyouthnet.org

Gayle A. Hobbs, Executive Director
LINC
3100 Broadway, Suite 226,
Kansas City, Mo. 64111
(816) 889-5050, Fax: (816) 889-5058

David Rey
The MidWest Center for Non-Profit Leadership
Warren Adam Leavitt
Kansas City Church Community Organizing (CCO)

Dr. Mary Long, Principal
Van Horn Community High School
1109 S. Arlington
Independence, MO 64053
(816) 418-4000; Fax: (816) 418-4021

Jolynn Nemeth, Principal
McCoy Elementary School
1524 White Avenue
Kansas City, Missouri 64126
(816) 418-3650; Fax: (816) 418-3665

Brent Schondlemeyer
Local Investment Commission (LINC)
3100 Broadway, Suite 226,
Kansas City, Mo. 64111
(816) 889-5050, Fax: (816) 889-5058

William Rogers
Van Horn Caring Community Center
1109 S. Arlington
Independence, MO 64053
(816) 254-4020; fax (816) 418-4019

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