Overview
City-wide afterschool systems have been developing across the country for years with the support of both public and private funds as education planners realize that work within the school day is not always enough to support the most marginalized students. Cities such as Providence, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, and New York have all worked hard to create a system in which students have access to engaging activities outside the school day. Yet, although efforts to scale up programs are a step in the right direction, it is also important that there be sufficient data within the system to both demonstrate the system’s success and inform quality improvements at the program and system level. We offered a two-part series on the use of data to improve quality in two city-wide afterschool systems—Providence, Rhode Island and Boston, Massachusetts. The first of the series included findings from the latest Public/Private Ventures evaluation of AfterZone, a city-wide network of afterschool providers in Providence. Panelists then discussed how data is used to support key levers that improve program quality and student outcomes throughout the system.
Presenters included:
Hillary Salmons, ED, Providence After School Alliance
Tina Kauh, Senior Research Associate, PPV
Bridget Kubis, Education Director, Save the Bay
Presenter Biographies
Dr. Tina Kauh, Senior Research Associate II and the Director of MIS, is a senior researcher at Public/Private Ventures (P/PV), a national non-profit research organization based in Philadelphia. While at P/PV, she has brought her expertise in youth development and quantitative methodology to several evaluations of youth programs, including the Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) School-Based Mentoring (SBM) Impact Study, the AfterZone Comparison Group Study and the Youth Violence Reduction Partnership Comparison Group Study. Currently Dr. Kauh is directing the evaluation of iMentor, a school-based mentoring programing for New York City high school students that integrates the use of technology, a four-year curriculum grounded in youth development and face-to-face meetings. She is particularly interested in the design and evaluation of programs targeting ethnic/racial minority youth.
Dr. Kauh has authored and co-authored publications in textbooks, the Handbook of Developmental Psychology, and peer-reviewed journals, including Prevention Science andChild Development. At P/PV, Dr. Kauh is the author of AfterZone: Outcomes for Youth Participating in Providence’s City-Wide Afterschool system, and Recruiting and Retaining Older African American and Hispanic Boys in After-School Programs: What We Know and What We Still Need to Learn. She has also co-authored several publications based on findings from the BBBS SBM impact study.
Dr. Kauh received a B.A. in psychology from Wellesley College. She earned both her M.S. and Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies, along with a doctoral minor in statistics, from The Pennsylvania State University. She is a member of the Society for Prevention Research, the Society for Research in Child Development and the Society for Research on Adolescence.
Bridget Kubis Prescott, Director of Education of Education at Save The Bay, has been in the world of informal environmental education for over 15 years. She started her career at Save The Bay as an Education Specialist in April 2002. In 2005, she was promoted to manager of Save The Bay’s newly acquired Exploration Center and Aquarium. Since August 2007 Bridget has been the Director of Education for Save The Bay’s Explore the Bay Education Program, which educates over 18,000 students annually about the importance of Narragansett Bay, its watershed, and coastal waters through hands on experiential education. She graduated from Lesley University’s Audubon Expedition Institute program with an M.S. in Environmental Education in May 2002 and received her BA in Marine Affairs from the University of Rhode Island in 1997. Bridget is an executive board member of The Rhode Island Environmental Education Association and sits on the The Rhode Island State Leadership team for the next generation of Science Standards.
Hillary Salmons, Executive Director, Providence After School Alliance (PASA)
In this role, Hillary manages the implementation, development and work to sustain PASA’s mission and business plan to increase youth participation in quality after school programs. She has primary responsibility for community engagement and fundraising efforts. Hillary directed the formation while in its formative years as part of the Education Partnership from July 2004 to July 2007. She helped establish PASA as an independent non-profit organization in July of 2007. Prior to incubating PASA, while with The Education Partnership, she launched the Rhode Island Scholars initiative, which mobilize the business community to promote more rigorous and relevant graduation requirements for all Rhode Island high school graduates. Previously, Hillary came from Health & Education Leadership for Providence (HELP), a coalition of Providence’s non-profit colleges and hospitals focused on improving the health and education of the children of Providence. While there, she worked at HELP to establish numerous systemic health and education initiatives. Hillary has worked in Japan with Refugees International and in New York City as a community organizer and deputy of a Brooklyn settlement house. Hillary has a M.A. in Public Administration from the University of Oklahoma and a B.A. from Harvard University.
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Presenter Information
Tina J. Kauh, MS, PhD
Senior Research Associate II & Director of MIS
Public/Private Ventures
2000 Market Street
Suite 550
Philadelphia, PA 19103
(215) 557-4481
Bridget Kubis
Director of Education
Save the Bay, Inc
100 Save The Bay Dri ve
Providence, RI 02905
401-272-3540, x137
Hillary Salmons
Executive Director
Providence After School Alliance, Inc. (PASA)
140 Broadway
Providence, RI 02903
401.490.9599 x101 office
