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Walker, Karen E.; Grossman, Jean Baldwin; Raley, RebeccaExtended Service Schools: Putting Programming in Place.Manpower Demonstration Research Corp., New York, NY.;Public/Private Ventures, Philadelphia, PA.2000-12-0085p.; With Veronica Fellerath and Glee I. Holton.Public/Private Ventures, One Commerce Square, 2005 MarketStreet, Suite 900, Philadelphia, PA 19103. Tel:215-557-4400; Fax: 215-557-4469. For full text:http://www.ppv.org.Reports Descriptive (141)MF01/PC04 Plus Postage.*After School Programs; *Community Schools; ElementarySecondary Education; *Extended School Day; Governance;Minority Groups; Needs Assessment; Poverty; ProgramDevelopment; Program Evaluation; *School Community Programs;Student Participation

This paper describes a multi-year evaluation of theExtended-Service Schools (ESS) Adaptation Initiative, sharing what has beenlearned about opening up schools and initiating collaborative school-basedprograms in poor communities during hours that school is not in session. TheESS included four unique school-community collaborative models. This reportdiscusses how cities began the process of opening up schools to children,youth, and adults and examines how these programs affect the lives of theirparticipants. The first half of the report describes early implementationexperiences, looking at the model types, the cities involved in theinitiative, and the conditions of the schools selected to implement theprogram. The next chapters: lay out the types of activities and services thathave been put in place; describe the students recruited and enrolled in theprograms; consider challenges faced by most programs and how the coordinatorshave reacted to the challenges; and examine how the programs becameoperational (types of collaborative structure each city used in planning andearly implementation, how cities planned and financed their programs, andmanagement and governance). (Contains 13 references.) (SM)

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3

2 Extended-Service Schools: Putting Programming in Place

0. Ontroduction After-school programs are not new. Organizations likethe Ys, Boys & Girls Clubs, 4-H, Campfire Girls, andBoys and Girls Incorporated have been providingenriching opportunities for children and youth in theafter-school hours for years. But unfortunately toomany poor youth do not have access to these facilitiesbecause there arc none located in their neighborhoods,parents arc concerned about their children's safety get-ting to and from the organizations, or they cannotafford the program's fees. In contrast, all young peoplehave access to schools. Many arc located in youth'sneighborhoods and, for the most part, parents arefamiliar with the schools and comfortable sending theirchildren to them. In addition, school buildings haveenormous untapped potential as facilities for meetingthe educational, developmental and recreational needsof youth and families in neighborhoods across theUnited States. Schools typically have gyms, libraries,auditoriums, art rooms and other spaces appropriatefor a range of activities. The formal school day is short,approximately seven hours, leaving hours a day whenschools are potentially available. School-based youthprograms would therefore seem to be a powerful addi-tion to the country's existing system of community-based programs for children and youth.

Recognizing that school buildings offer importantresources, a movement to open up the schools hasexploded, taking root in a number of cities. The largestcity-funded, school-based youth program in the UnitedStates is the New York City Beacon Initiative, begun in1991 with city funds. There are now 80 elementaryand middle schools in New York City that have BeaconCenters. The San Francisco Beacon Initiative beganimplementation in 1997 and currently operates in eightcity schools. Boston has another large, city-fundedinitiative, as does Los Angeles. Along with these exten-sive city-funded efforts, the federal government beganthe 21st Century Community Learning Center Pro-gram in 1996 with one million dollars. For fiscal year2000, the government allocated $450 million to theprogram; cities of all sizes have eagerly applied for thefunds, which are used to support educational and otherenrichment activities after school.

The movement to locate programs for children andyouth in schools during the nonschool hours is morethan just an attempt to take advantage of schools'facilities; it also aims to build a new kind of institu-tionone that uses school facilities and unites school

Introduction 3

personnel with staff from community-based organiza-tions and local residents to create vital centers of activ-ity and service for children, youth and their families inthe nonschool hours. Throughout this report, for sim-plicity, we refer to these programs as after-school pro-grams. However, as will be seen in Chapter 3, many ofthe school/community collaboratives we are investigat-ing deliver more than just after-school services, and allattempt to involve more than just children.

Despite the growing popularity of these school-basedprograms, little is known about how to implementthem in school buildings, who will be attracted toschool-based programs, and what effects participationmay have on the children and youth. Building a newinstitution is a time-consuming process and, as morecommunities undertake the effort, they will likely facemany of the same questions, challenges and hurdlesencountered by communities that have already begunthe process. As a result, it is crucial that there be infor-mation available that identifies effective strategies forimplementing programs and overcoming commonchallenges, and that shapes expectations for programs.What is possible in programs? How long does it takefor one to become fully operational? What changes canwe expect to see in youth as a result of these programs?

The multi-year evaluation of the Extended-ServiceSchools Adaptation Initiative, described briefly below,is currently under way to answer these questions.While the project and evaluation are on-going, we feltit was important to share early lcarnings that havealready been gained over the planning phase and firstfull year of program implementation. Many communi-ties and schools wish to start similar programs andcould benefit from learning:

What it takes to get a community-orientedschool-based youth program on the ground,andWhat early challenges can they expect and howhave others dealt with them?

Other communities arc dealing with many of the issuesthat have arisen in the ESS sites. Thus, to meet thedemand for information, this interim report shareswith policymakers and practitioners what has beenlearned about opening up schools and initiating collab-orative school-based programs during the hours thatschool is not in session.

The Extended-Service SchoolsAdaptation InitiativeFor the past decade, the Wallace-Reader's DigestFunds have focused their work on improving the qual-ity of educational and developmental services availableto children living in poor communities. One of severalcreative approaches the Funds decided to explore sys-tematically was school/community collaboration.Therefore, when they set out in the mid-1990s toexplore collaborations that open public schools duringthe nonschool hours to children and communitygroups, The Funds commissioned a paper by JoyDryfoos to cast a broad net to identify promisingapproaches that differed with respect to managementstructures and program goals. Several models surfacedas strong and potentially adaptable nationwide. TheNew York Beacon Initiative provides a model of a part-nership in which a community -based organization runsafter-school programs in the public schools. It hadsubstantial public support and funding, and wasexpanding quickly in New York City's middle schools.Another model of community-school collaboration thatbegan in New York is the highly integrated service andeducational collaborative formed by the Children's AidSociety and the school district in Washington Heights.This model, called Community Schools, requires moreradical change on the part of schools than does theBeacon model because, in theory, it encourages sharedschool/program management with community-basedorganizations and aims to include programming duringand after the school day. In Philadelphia, the WestPhiladelphia Improvement Corporation (WEPIC),spearheaded by the University of Pennsylvania, pro-vides a third modelone that links universities andschools in reciprocally beneficial learning experiences.Lastly, perceiving the potential for sustainability in aUnited Way school/community collaboration, TheFunds encouraged the United Way of America (UWof A) to identify a viable school/community model. Itidentified Bridges to Success in Indianapolis as a waythat local agencies could collaborate with schools. TheFunds then encouraged the Institute for EducationalLeadership (IEL) to work with UW of A since IELhad a long history of direct involvement in education.

Several of these models arc being evaluated; thus, therewas no need for The Funds to duplicate model-specificevaluations. On the other hand, an initiative thatincludes multiple models could be generated to addressmany interesting unanswered questions. Would all

4

models work equally well in all cities? Are any of thefour models more effective in certain areas than areother models? One model, for example, might includestructures and features that make it more effective forgenerating and sustaining adult resident involvement,while a second model might be more open to youthparticipation in implementation decisions. An initiativewith multiple models would also be able to addresswhether some models arc more easily implemented incertain situations. What aspects of cities' situations ledthem to adapt the models? How did each modeleachwith its distinctive organizational structure and pro-grammatic featuresaddress the particular social, cul-tural and political contexts of individual communities.To address these important cross-cutting issues, theFunds constructed the Extended-Service Schools (ESS)Adaptation Initiative composed of these four school/community collaborative modelsthe Beacon model,Community Schools, WEPIC and Bridges to Success.

ESS's design intentionally embodies both model varia-tion and city-level variation. This variation enables theinitiative and its accompanying evaluation to examinehow to implement after-school collaborations in verydifferent contexts and to learn about the general issuesinvolved in providing opportunities to youth in theirnonschool time. Understanding how and why citiesmodified the programs to fit their situations will alsobe useful to other cities considering similar school/community collaborations.' The variation permits theevaluation to distinguish among the opportunities,challenges and effects presented by dimensions of theprogram (such as the location or the governance struc-ture) and the environment (such as being located in anelementary or high school). Because communities con-templating new school/community collaborations willadopt and tailor pre - existing models to best suit theirsituations, it is important to understand how program-matic and environmental dimensions influenceadaptation.

Focusing the initiative and its evaluation on the adapta-tion process and understanding broad general lessonsabout after-school programs and school/communitycollaborations is unique. The ESS evaluation providesus with an opportunity to examine how program strat-egies from a variety of models adapt to new environ-ments. It provides the opportunity to explore in detailthe choices that communities face as they plan theirinitiatives, the inevitable trade-offs and negotiations

Extended-Service Schools: Putting Programming in Place

that ensue, and how local opportunities and constraintsshape local initiatives. Throughout the evaluation, wewill focus on what aspects of the adaptation process orother findings appear to be generic and which seemmore model-specific.

All four models offer school -based services and youthdevelopment activities to children living in poor com-munities during nonschool hours and thus can all belabeled after-school programs. The model adaptationsin the ESS cities provide opportunities to learn aboutafter-school programming. However, all four modelshave much broader goals. All of them aim to funda-mentally change the way the school and the communityinteract, making the interaction much more collabora-tive. Thus, in addition to affording as the opportunityto learn about after-school programs, the ESS initiativewill generate findings about school/community collab-oration. In sum, the ESS initiative and its evaluationare intended to provide practitioners, fundcrs andpolicymakers in local communities with a richer set oflessons about how local school-based collaborationsunfold than could be obtained from either an evalua-tion of a single after-school program or a single school/community collaboration.

The next section briefly lays out the design of the ESSevaluation. The chapter ends with a discussion of thereport's goals and organization.

Evaluation Design and this ReportAfter reviewing existing research and ongoing evalua-tions, five key areas were identified as priorities forthe ESS evaluation: understanding the community-level planning and leadership needed to launch andmaintain these collaborations; examining the factorsthat contribute to successful program implementationand quality service; describing youth's participationpatterns and their relationship to youth's programexperiences; determining the programs' per-studentcost; and exploring programs' financing strategies.The diversity embodied in the initiative provides a rich,yet daunting, source of information on these issues.

We designed the four-year evaluation to provide uswith both an understanding of the breadth of program-ming experience and the ability to delve more deeplyinto particular issues. To learn about the range of pro-gramming experiences in all cities, program operatorsare asked to fill out annual organizational surveys

6

Introduction 5

describing the general contours of their programs, theircost and particular themes that emerge over time. Toexplore implementation issues more deeply, we arcconducting inperson visits to 10 cities (at least two cit-ies per model). The experiences of all the programs inthose 10 cities are being followed. Youth's participa-tion and experiences are being tracked in six of the 10cities whose program staff were willing and able toundertake the data-collection tasks necessary for theevaluation. We refer to these six cities as the intensiveresearch cities.

The ESS evaluation is currently scheduled to end inearly 2002. However, the need for informationgrows as more communities undertake to establishafter-school programs and/or school/community col-laborations. Thus, we wrote this report covering whatwas learned about the planning process and what hap-pened in the programs during their first full year ofimplementation.2

Most of the information used for this report came fromour verbatim site visit notes. We visited the 10 imple-mentation cities, most twice, from late 1998 to late1999. During the visits, research staff conducted inter-views with program staff, activity providers, leaders inthe efforts to implement the initiative, local fundersand school district personnel. In addition, during thesecond round of visits, we observed activities for youth.To put the detailed information from the implementa-tion cities into perspective, we attempted to obtain datafrom all 17 cities through the organizational surveys.Approximately three-quarters of school coordinators(or 45) responded to the survey. Data collection onyouth's participation patterns and their experiences hasjust begun. However, early enrollment data were avail-able for some of the schools in five of the cities. Costand financing information were collected from theorganizational surveys, though few cities providedinformation on all program costs.

This report draws on all these data to address two setsof questions. The first set relates to what the programsachieved within the first year:

What type of activities were put in place? Whowere attracted and recruited into these newprograms?How were the programs managed? How wereactivities provided?

What were the common early implementationchallenges facing the programs?

The second set of questions relates to what it takes tolaunch these types of school/ community initiatives:

Who participated in the collaborative process?What factors influenced the success of city-level collaborative efforts?How were the schools chosen? Who deter-mined the early program's content? How didprograms finance their early implementationperiod?How did management authoritydevolve to the school-level?

Organization of the ReportThis report discusses how cities begin the process ofopening up schools to children, youth and adults: weexamine the cities' planning and piloting efforts andcontinue through their first year of implementation.The next report will address the question of how theseprograms affect the lives of their participants. Newprograms take time to establish themselves. Not onlydo entire program infrastructures need to be put inplacenew staff hired and trained, management andreporting structures determined, activity providerslocated and engagedbut the programs must advertisethemselves; establish a reputation among students, par-ents and volunteers; and recruit participants. Theymust learn to adapt to the school and their local envi-ronments, build key relationships and weed out unreli-able providers. Despite the enormity of the tasks fac-ing them, the first-year performance of the ESS pro-grams was impressive. They got on the groundquickly. They engaged a very committed group of staffand partners. Many of the activities we observed werequite innovative. And all attracted many students.

These achievements did not come about effortlessly,though. In order to deepen the field's understandingof what it takes to establish these school/communitycollaborations and help others who are thinking of fol-lowing suit, this report focuses on the challenges theESS cities faced during this early period. Thus, thisreport should not be read as an assessment of the pro-gram's potential but rather more as a discussion aboutthe strategies cities used to start dealing with the inher-ent complexities of operating in a school system. As


we will mention at the end of the report, several of thechallenges cities encountered during the early part ofthe initiative were overcome later; but since other newinitiatives arc likely to run into similar issues, it isinstructive to discuss them.

To highlight what the programs were able to accom-plish over the first year, the first half of the reportdescribes their early implementation experiencesinstead of starting with the planning period. Beforediscussing the experiences of the programs, wedescribe, in Chapter II, the model types, the citiesinvolved in the initiative and the conditions of theschools that were selected to implement the programs.Chapter III lays out the types of activities and servicesthat have been put in place, while Chapter IV describesthe students who enrolled in the program and howthey were recruited. Chapter V considers the challengesfaced by most of the programs and how the coordina-tors have reacted. In Chapters VI through VIII, weturn to examining how these programs became opera-tional: Chapter VI describes the types of collaborativestructure each city used in the planning and earlyimplementation periods and why; Chapter VII dis-cusses how the cities planned and financed their pro-grams; and Chapter VIII examines management andgovernance. We conclude by discussing our findings'for implications using schools as a venue for after-school programs and for the potential of these pro-grams to achieve their goals.

8

The Models, the Cities and the Schools 7

The Models, the Cities andthe Schools

Many of the analyses in this report examine whetherand how model differences affect implementation. Aswe ultimately conclude, differences due to model differ-ences are modest during this early phase of implemen-tation. Nonetheless, there arc differences in decision-making structures and organizational partnershipsamong the cities that arose early in the initiative. Inthis chapter, we describe key characteristics of themodels, as well as the cities and schools in which theinitiative was implemented.

The ModelsSpecific attributes of the models were defined by thenational intermediaries that worked with the originalmodels' sites. Below we present those attributes; thetext discusses the differencesboth qualitative andquantitativeamong the models, while the boxesoutline prototypical attributes of each model. In prac-tice, of course, both the original model sites and thenational adaptation cities vary from the descriptiveinformation published by the intermediaries. Nonethe-less, prototypical descriptions arc useful for delineatingdifferent visions and the strategies taken to achievethem.

MissionAs the brief individual descriptions of the models indi-cate, they vary significantly with respect to their formalmissions: while the Bridges to Success model aims tobetter link families and schools in order to increase stu-dents' academic achievements by better serving theirnon-educational needs, the Community Schools modelaims for no less than school transformation. TheWEPIC model hopes to improve schools through cur-ricular changes and additional human resources, in theform of university students and faculty. The Beaconmodel hopes to provide school-based safe havens foryouth in the nonschool hours, and to do so on a largescale within cities.

Differences in the missions of the models have implica-tions for the ways the adaptation cities approach theirwork. WEPIC and Community Schools work inten-sively with school administrators to design activitiesresponsive to the schools' needs. These models oftenattempt to integrate school and nonschool learningactivities. Thus, an after-school enrichment activitysuch as building models of students' dream homes willexplicitly attempt to improve students' math skills.Neither model focuses exclusively on programming in

8

Beacon

National Intermediary: Youth Development Institute atthe Fund for the City of New York.

Original Model Sites: New York City Public Schools,primarily middle schools.

Mission: To develop and operate school-basedcommunity centers; to create "safe havens" for youthand families in poor neighborhoods; to promote youthdevelopment and resiliency.

Activities: A diverse array of youth developmentactivities in five core areas: education, recreation andenrichment, career development, leadership devel-opment and health. Activities take place duringnonschool hours and emphasize several factorsimportant to youth resiliency: caring adult relationships;engaging activities; high expectations; opportunity tomake a contribution; and continuity.

Governance: Each Beacon Center has a lead agencythat manages all activities at the school. A localorganization provides technical assistance inorganizational development as well as youthdevelopment practices. An over-sight committee,consisting of executive staff from key CBOs and schooldistrict staff, provide general policy and managementoversight. Each school has a school-level decision-making body that includes parents and othercommunity representation.

the nonschool hours, including after-school and in thesummer, though all schools in the WEPIC and Com-munity School cities have after-school programs. Someprograms in these two models may take place duringthe school day, blurring the distinction between thecommunity agencies and the school.

In contrast, the Beacon model is designed to createschool-based community centers within the schools.There is less attention paid to integrating activities intothe school day in the Beacon literature. Instead, themodel focuses explicitly on the nonschool hours, enabl-ing them to work with school staff not possible forprograms operating during the day.

GovernanceIn developing its requirements for the National Adap-tation, the designers addressed the need for cities toidentify funding sources to sustain the initiative beyondthe three -year grant period. As a result, one of the

The Models, the Cities and the Schools


requirements for the planning proposals was that thecities develop partnerships among key youth-servingorganizations and stakeholders such as funders, schoolsystems, community-based organizations and parents.In addition, the grant requirements noted thatdecision making should be shared with those served bythe initiative, namely youth and their families.

Within the guidelines, the models differ significantlyin how they developed decision-making structures,both with respect to who was included in decision-making and the kinds of decision-making bodies thatexisted. The Community Schools model perhaps hasthe "tightest" decision-making structure, consisting ofa principal, the Community School director, a repre-sentative from a local university and an executive of acommunity-based organization (which employs thedirector). The model also incorporates parents and

Community Schools

Original Model Sites: PS 5 & PS 8; IS 218 and IS 90 inthe Washington Heights section of New York City.

National Intermediary: Children's Aid Society, NY, andthe National Center for Communities and Schools atFordham University.

Mission: "Educational excellence, combined withneeded human services, delivered through school,parent and community partnerships.""Seamless integration of school-day activities withextended-day programs."

Activities: A wide range of youth development programsduring the school day and in non-school hours. Socialservices, such as on-site clinics, legal assistance, andcase management are also provided. Parent educationis an important component of the Community Schools.

Governance: Co-management of school facilities by theschool and a community-based organization. To thisend, management staff from the CBO have space in theschool administrative offices so they can interactfrequently with school principals.

Additional characteristics of the National Adaptation:Local universities play a key role in technicalassistance and planning. An oversight committee,consisting of university staff, executive staff from keyCBOs, and school district staff, provide general policyand management oversight. In addition, each schoolshould have a school-level decision-making body thatincludes parents and other community representation.

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8

West Philadelphia Improvement Corporation(WEPIC)

Original Model Sites: Turner Elementary School inWest Philadelphia.

National Intermediary: Center for CommunityPartnerships at the University of Pennsylvania.

Mission: A school-based school and community revital-ization program to produce comprehensive, university-assisted community schools that serve, educate andactivate all members of the community, revitalizing thecurriculum through a community-oriented, real-world,problem-solving approach.

Activities: Academically based community service,such as graduate and undergraduate interns workingin schools to provide educational assistance andmentoring to youth.

Governance: School principals and staff play keydecision-making roles, such as deciding whatsubstantive areas will be addressed through theinitiative. Community councils provide guidance onprogram content.

other community members in a school-level advisorygroup. The executive group is expected to cooperateextensivelyindeed the tight integration of social ser-vices and enrichment activities both during the schoolday and in the nonschool hours would be impossible ifthe group did not cooperate. The small team- manage-ment structure is possibleas we shall see in ChapterVIIIbecause single schools arc involved in the localinitiatives.

The Beacon and Bridges to Success models share somegovernance features, but there are also key differences.In both models, programs are being implemented inthree or more schools within the adaptation cities. As aresult, the models include city-wide oversight commit-tees, consisting of school district personnel, personnelfrom governmental agencies and offices, and executivestaff from CBOs. The oversight committee is expectedto set policy guidelines for all schools in the local initia-tive and work on identifying funds for future sustain-ability. Also, in both Beacon and Bridges to Success,cities are expected to convene school -level councils,including community parents, to help make local deci-sions. The two models differ in their approach to

direct management of programs at the schools. TheBeacon model identifies a lead agency to oversee pro-gramming at each school site. The lead agency isaccountable to a lead organization, which managesgrants to all the CBOs managing school sites in thecity. In addition, the lead organization or a secondorganization provides local technical assistance to theschool sites. The Bridges to Success model employsschool coordinators (hired by the United Way, theschool or the agency) who may work with multipleschools and make decisions in conjunction with theschool-based council.

WEPIC is the least easily characterized, and variationsfrom the prototype are significant. The model relies onsubstantial contributions of time by university facultyand undergraduate and graduate students. Universityfaculty often become part of a school-level manage-ment or advisory group, which may consist of a school

Bridges to Success

Original Model Site: Indianapolis, Indiana.

National Intermediaries: United Way of America andthe Institute for Educational Leadership.

Mission: To increase the educational success ofstudents by better meeting the noneducational needsof children and their families through a partnership ofeducation, human and community service deliverysystems, with a long-range vision of establishingschools as "life-long learning centers" and focal pointsof their communities.

Activities: Vary according to site, but each site has anoverarching goal of promoting positive youth devel-opment during nonschool hours. Activities includeeducational enrichment, career development, arts andculture, "life-skills," counseling, case management,health and mental health services, and recreation.

Governance: The Local United Way agency acts aslead organization and fiscal agent. A local governancestructure made up of United Way, school district, socialservice and community representatives develops city-wide programming strategies and oversees implemen-tation. School-level councils assess the needs andassets of the community, and design and implementprogram interventions. The councils include a programcoordinator, school principal and other school staff,parents, students and local partners.

11


Table 2.1The Cities Involved in the ESS Model Adaptations and the Number of Schools in Each City

Beacon Bridges to Success Community Schools WEPIC

*Denver, CO (3) *Central Falls, RI (3)

*Minneapolis, MN (5) Guilford County andHighpoint, NC (2)

Oakland, CA (4)

*Savannah, GA (3)

Flint, MI (3)

*Jacksonville, FL (5)

Mesa, AZ (5)

*Missoula, MT (5)

*Boston, MA (1) Albuquerque, NM (1)

*Long Beach, CA (1) *Atlanta, GA (1)

Salt Lake City, UT (1) *Aurora, CO (1)

Denver, CO (1)

*Indicate cities to which research visits were made.

coordinator, faculty and the school's principal.Principals play key decision-making roles in schools.

Programs and ActivitiesPrograms and activities vary significantly across themodels. All were directed to promote positive youthdevelopment, which the Funds defined as activities thatfoster the ongoing growth process in which all youthendeavor to meet their basic needs for safety, caringrelationships and connections to the larger community,and to acquire academic, vocational, personal and socialskills. The approach builds on the strengths of youngpeople and recognizes their needs for ongoing supportand challenging opportunities. The definition is suffi-ciently broad to encompass a huge variety of activities,as noted above. The Beacon and the Bridges toSuccess models focus on activities conducted duringthe nonschool hours. The Beacon model identifiesfive core developmental areas: education, recreationand enrichment, career development, leadershipdevelopment and health. The Bridges to Successmodel includes all those plus case management andcounseling.

The Community Schools and WEPIC models havevery diverse sets of activities across the cities, and donot focus exclusively on youth development. Whileactivities in both models may include after-school andsummer programs, they may also include programsthat occur during the school day. Thus, a CommunitySchool might have a parent center that is open during

school hours. There might be extensive case manage-ment and counseling available to children and theirfamilies. WEPIC may include the implementation ofprofessional development classes for teachers or thedevelopment of project -based classes or communityservice projects for students in the school, using theresources of the university.

The CitiesTo examine how extended-service schools could beadapted to a variety of environments, the ESS NationalAdaptation was implemented in 17 cities, both largeand small. Among the largest cities in the initiative arePhiladelphia, Minneapolis and Denver; among thesmallest are Central Falls, Rhode Island (with 18,000residents) and Missoula, Montana (with 83,000 resi-dents). Size, however, is only one dimension that dif-ferentiates the cities. Other dimensions are equally, ifnot more, important to the implementation of the ini-tiative. Local political, service and funding environ-ments play an important role in how local initiativesunfold, as we shall demonstrate throughout thereport. Below, we list some of the dimensions thathave proved to be important, along with descriptionsof the variations across cities. But first, Table 2.1 liststhe cities implementing each model and the number ofschools involved in the adaptation in each city. Of the17 cities listed, researchers visited the 10 whose namesin the table are preceded by an asterisk. Since contex-tual information is thus available only for those 10 cit-ies, the discussions that follow are based on them.

12


Local CollaborationsThere are a number of ways in which local contexteither facilitates or impedes implementation of the localefforts. Among the most important is the existence ofprevious collaborations, which shaped, eased or chal-lenged how the local ESS collaborations were formed.While most cities had participated in previous collabo-rations (it was one of the factors taken into consider-ation during city selection), the scope and content ofthose collaborations varied. Missoula, a Bridges toSuccess city, for instance, has a pre- existing collabora-tion whose goals arc very similar to the ESS initiative's.In addition, key stakeholders in Missoula suggested theexistence of an organizational culture that supports thecollaborations. In Savannah, while there are veryimportant pre - existing collaborations among youth-serving organizations, for historical reasons the schoolsystem is not an active partner. For the Savannah ESSinitiative, the fiscal agency worked hard to negotiate acollaboration that included the schools.

In the current funding climate, in which both philan-thropic and government funders encourage organiza-tions to collaborate, many cities have recent experienceforming and operating collaborations. However,others may not. Being able to identify the kinds ofnegotiation that the ESS cities underwent to forgetheir ESS collaborations and, in one instance, lookingat the development of a collaboration where none pre-viously existed, provides important information aboutthe process of forging collaborations. Chapter VIdiscusses the importance of pre-existing collaborationsin detail.

State and Local Support for Youth ServicesWhile all the ESS communities had to generate match-ing funding for the initiative, states and cities differedsignificantly in their willingness and ability to supportyouth services. As we visited the cities, we sought toplace the critical issue of sustainability in the context ofcurrent levels of public support for youth services andpossibilities for creating greater support.

In Denver, we heard that the levels of support foryouth services in the State of Colorado are relativelylow. Further, while the early childhood community iswell-organized, the community of those interested inolder youth and adolescents is in an earlier stage ofdevelopment. In addition, Colorado has experienced arelatively recent economic boom and lacks the strongphilanthropic community that other cities have.

Sustainability for the cities in Colorado, therefore, is avery big challenge.

In contrast, Minnesota has a long tradition of supportfor social services. More particularly, the Center forYouth Development and Research at the University ofMinnesota and the Search Institute have shaped strongsupport for a youth development approach in Minne-apolis. These strong proponents of a youth develop-ment approach have helped to create an environment inwhich philosophical support (if not actual funding) forinitiatives such as the Adaptation is strong. By statemandate, schools must address developmental needsbeyond academic needs, and the Adaptation is seen as astrategy for doing so in Minneapolis, which encour-aged school system buy-in.

Savannah, Georgia has a mature youth advocacy orga-nization, the Youth Futures Authority, that is the fiscalagent for the Adaptation. Staff there doubt that thecity could be encouraged to contribute much more tothe Adaptation and are therefore considering other ave-nues for sustaining the initiative.

Local School Reform EffortsAlthough school reform efforts are widespread acrossthe United States, localities vary tremendously in thestaging and extent of the efforts. Some cities expressdeep concern about student performance but have notyet settled on strategies to improve academic perfor-mance. Others have extensive strategies in place toimprove both student outcomes and the quality of theeducation provided to students. Still others are begin-ning conversations at the state level about educationalstandards, but different performance standards havenot yet been imposed on schools.

The ESS cities reflect this diversity. In Boston, Minne-apolis and Atlanta, for example, increased standardshave already been put in place, and schools and parentsare responding to them. In those cities, heightenedattention to standards and academic performance influ-ences implementation strategies of the local Adapta-tion. In Chapter III, we describe how summer pro-gramming is scheduled around youth's summer schoolschedules. In other cities, school reform and academicstandards arc under discussion, but have not yet beenimplemented. Thus, they are not yet a conspicuousand central factor in making decisions about implemen-tation, although it would probably be safe to say that


school reform and standards arc a subtext for discus-sion of implementation across the cities.

Neighborhood Economic and DemographicCharacteristicsIn addition to the factors concerned primarily with theinfluence of city politics and funding issues on imple-mentation at the city level, the characteristics of partici-pating neighborhoods and communities arc importantto implementation. As in so many other dimensions,they are tremendously diverse. While most of theneighborhoods served by the ESS programs have highproportions of low-income residents, they range signif-icantly from very poor or socially disorganized commu-nities with few resources to moderately poor and fairlycohesive neighborhoods with a range of social services.In the former circumstance, lack of local resourcesmeans that the school -based programs may have diffi-culty identifying organizations and people who canprovide activities at the schools.

Neighborhood demographics, including student demo-graphics, also affect implementation. In communitieswith high proportions of immigrant families, especiallythose from Central and South America, the back-and-forth movement from communities in the UnitedStates to the countries of origin are reported to influ-ence activity participation patterns. In addition, thepresence of high proportions of immigrant familiesoften leads to the implementation of certain kinds ofprograms, such as English As a Second Language(ESL), and requires meeting the challenge of recruitingstudents from different ethnic groups.

The diversity across the cities is impressive. Table 2.2provides a snapshot that describes each of the inten-sive research cities with respect to the presence of pre-existing collaborations, support from state and localgovernment, and whether local school reform effortsare under way. What the table cannot do, however, isdescribe the differential effects that cities may experi-ence from similar circumstances. Those discussions willbe presented in the evaluation's second report.

The SchoolsBy some measures, the schools selected for the initia-tive arc typical of urban schools across the country.Most have student populations heavily representingminority youthAfrican American, Asian, Latino anda few Native Americans. The vast majority serve highproportions of low-income youth, and academic per-formance in many of the schools is reported to be low.Partly as a result, principal turnover is high: approxi-mately one -third of the schools have had new principalswithin the past year, and two-thirds have had two ormore principals in the past five years. Table 2.3describes how the schools range on key demographicfeatures.

The similarities, however, obscure some importantdifferences. A small number of schools have strong,long -term principals who have been instrumental inthe implementation of the initiative. Some are neigh-borhood schools, such as those in Denver and Atlanta.Similarly, Central Falls, Rhode Island, fits into a tinygeographic area one square mileso only a smallproportion of youth are bused. Other schools,

Table 2.2A Snapshot of Local Resources and Concerns That Affected Implementation

CityPre-existing

CollaborationsState and Local Local School Reform

Government Support Under Way

Atlanta

Aurora

Boston

Central Falls

Denver

Jacksonville

Long Beach

14


Table 2.3School Demographics in ESS, by School Level

Level ofSchool

Number ofSchools*

Median Percent of StudentsEligible for Free/Reduced Lunch

Median Percent of StudentsBused to School

Median Percentof Student Mobility

Elementary 18 78% 30% 33%

Middle 25 86 20 30

High 4 26 65 10

*Includes only those schools that responded to the organizational surveys.

however, are in urban school systems in which studentsare bused long distances. Minneapolis Public Schools(MPS), for instance, buses 95 percent of all publicschool students, which is partly a result of integrationefforts and partly a result of a poor fit between whereschools are located and where families with young chil-dren live. Missoula has a relatively large population ofrural youth who attend the city's five schools, and inthree of them, over 40 percent of the students arebused. As Chapter V details, whether or not studentsare bused to school has a profound affect on programchoices.

Another important difference includes the kind of pro-grams available within the schools before ESS imple-mentation began. Although consistent informationabout previous activities is lacking, the available infor-mation indicates that some schools had extensive socialservice or after-school programs, while others had rela-tively little.' For example, Florida has state-mandatedfull service schools where services such as health careand mental health services are provided in the schoolsby outside (nonschool-district) agencies. The Adapta-tion school in Jacksonville, Florida, was thereforeaccustomed to the idea of opening up school buildingsto outsiders, but it has not previously had extensiveafter-school programs for high school or elementaryschool youth. In several cities such as Minneapolis,school districts had community education programsthat provided activities during the nonschool hours.However, for the most part, programming appeared tocenter around adult classes and after-school care forelementary school children, with a few activities forolder youth.

In addition to school-district-run activities, community-based organizations sometimes ran activities within theschools prior to ESS, although it is safe to say that theydid so much less frequently than after implementationbegan. YMCAs and other youth serving organizationshave long run fee -based after-school programs for youthwhose parents work and do not want their childrenhome alone.

ConclusionThe experiences of the schools in the Adaptation shedlight on how a diverse range of school-based afterschool programs evolve in a variety of settings. As thepreceding discussion of the models, cities and schoolssuggests, the story we have to tell in the following pagesis one of both complexity and diversity. Multiple factorsinfluenced how implementation progressed in theschools, and what mattered in one school may not havemattered in another. In addition, the factorsoften interacted with each other. Thus, the significanceof a lack of local services and resources in a CommunitySchool, whichas we shall showwas much morelikely to draw upon teachers within the school to pro-vide activities, was different from that in a BeaconCenter, which was more likely to look for nonschoolproviders.

There is so much diversity in so many dimensions thatit is not possible to explore each one systematically inthe context of this report. Instead, it examines howcontextual factors in the cities and schools influencehow particular models adapt to their environment.This diversity moves the spotlight off the particularmodel and on to school-based after- school programs ingeneral. Doing so enables us to identify the key factorsthat should concern cities and schools when designingtheir programs.

14

01111. The Programs in the SchooDs

The major thing is to help kids succeed, toprepare them to be good citizens in the21st century, which includes career, fam-ily, personal satisfaction, and the skills tobe successfulhve need to] give them allthe skills, prepare them for the next stepthat they're going to make. Also, getthem involved in quality communityactivities.

Fiscal Agent

16


As we saw earlier, each model intermediary and origi-nal model site had unique goals for the initiative. TheBeacon model emphasizes youth development, whichincludes a number of goals. The Bridges to Successmodel focuses on improvements in children andyouth's educational performance. The CommunitySchool model emphasizes the integration of educa-tional and social services. WEPIC has a dual focus:improving both public school education and services,and university education. What happened when themodels were adapted to different environments? Didthey maintain their original vision? Or did the citiesadapt them to their own particular contexts? Were theAdaptation programs able to translate their goals intorelevant activities and services?

Programs offer a variety of Extended-Services andactivities for youth and adults. While, for simplicity,we refer to these services and activities as after-schoolprograms, they include before- and after-school pro-gramming, summer programs, during-school pro-grams, and weekend and holiday activities. Specialeducational and recreational programs are run foradults. Several programs also provide a limited array ofsocial services to students, their parents and communitymembers. This chapter describes the activities offeredacross the sites and discusses how the types of activityrelate to program goals. It also briefly examines thequality of programs and youth's responses, which wewill discuss more systematically in a future report. Aswe have emphasized in previous chapters, the localinitiatives were in their early stages of development,and the snapshots of program quality in the followingpages provide a benchmark of what activities can looklike after a year of implementation. Although we wereoften impressed by activities, some could be improved.Our future research will undoubtedly documentimprovements, as the school coordinators continue towork on the scope and quality of their programs.

In the following pages we address the followingquestions:

What were the goals of the local initiatives?Did the goals vary by model type?What activities were implemented and how didthey relate to the programs' goals?What was the quality of the activities at thisearly stage of implementation?

The Programs in the Schools 15

Goals of the Adaptation ProgramsIn a survey mailed to all ESS fiscal agents and programcoordinators involved in the Adaptation, respondentswere asked to identify their main program goals byselecting three of nine possible goal choices (see Table3.1). The goals most frequently listed were: improveacademic performance; increase positive relations withpeers and adults; develop school-community partner-ships; and ensure the safe and productive use of youth'sout-of-school time. Other goals, such as increaseparental involvement, decrease youth's negative behav-iors, and create more opportunities for athletic or cul-tural enrichment were also frequently listed.

We found only modest differences in the goals selectedby cities adapting different models. In fact, the distri-bution of only two goals differs significantly. In bothcases, the differences were between Beacon and theother models.

Athletic and Cultural ExperiencesWe found that respondents in Beacon cities were morelikely than were other respondents to list the impor-tance of enriching the children's lives with athletic andcultural experiences: while slightly over half the Beaconrespondents said that cultural and athletic experienceswere important, less than a quarter of other respon-dents said so. We speculate that the difference is dueto the extent to which the national intermediary for theBeacon model emphasizes youth development in itscommunications with cities. Of all the models, Beaconhas the oldest and most extensive technical assistanceeffort. The Fund for the City of New York has beenproviding assistance to the New York City Beaconsince 1991 and has developed an extensive collectionof materials that explain the importance of youth devel-opmental programming and places the goals of theBeacon within the context of youth development. TheBeacon model emphasizes a focus on several key areasof youth development, of which educational achieve-ment is one and the provision of recreational oppor-tunities including athleticsis another.

Partnership BuildingThe only other goal to differ by model is partnership-building. Again, the responses provided by schoolcoordinators in the Beacon model differed significantlyfrom the responses of school coordinators in the othermodels. Bridges to Success, Community Schools andWEPIC coordinators were more likely than were theBeacon sites to emphasize the importance of partner

Table 3.1

Goals of ESS Adaptations Number ofResponses

Improving academic performance 27

Foster positive relations with peers 26and adults

Building partnerships between 24community organizations andschools

Using youth's out-of-school time 23safely and productively

Involving parents more in their 15children's lives and schools

Keeping youth off the streets and 15out of trouble

Enriching youth's lives with more 14athletic and cultural experiences

Fostering school reform 5

Making more social services 3available to youth and families

51 surveys had valid responses.

ships: only one-third of the Beacon coordinators men-tioned collaboration, while two-thirds of the othercoordinators did. We are unsure why this differenceexists, since the philosophy underlying all modelsemphasizes collaboration. It is possible that the resultis an artifact of the survey question, which forcedrespondents to choose only three goals. Since theBeacon model clearly delineates core program goals, itis possible that the school coordinators in the Beaconchose the programming goals in the survey that mostclosely resembled the model's goals.

Therefore, although goal differences exist among themodels, they appear to be relatively modest overall.Three of the four goals most selectedimproved aca-demic performance, positive relations with peers andadults, partnerships between communities and schools,and the safe and productive use of out-of-schooltimewere the same across all models.

17

16

Next we turn to the degree to which the programswere able to operationalize their goals. In particular,we examine whether the type of programming reflectsa program's emphasis on academic performance, posi-tive peer and adult relationships, and a safe, productiveenvironment for the students. The issues of collabora-tion and partnership will be addressed in later chapters.

After - school ActivitiesAfter-school activities were by far the most prevalenttype of programming offered. The organizationalsurvey indicated that all the programs had an after-school component. Most programs run between thehours of 3:00p.m and 5:00p.m., but some begin asearly as 2:00p.m. or end as late as 8:00p.m. Althoughconsiderable variation in programming content andinstruction style exists across programs, there is strongconsistency in the types of activity provided: all pro-grams offer some form of direct academic support andcultural or creative enrichment activities; all but threeprograms offer some type of athletic programming(ranging from coached sports to individual classes andopen gym time); and over half the programs offercareer preparation instruction, decision-making andleadership activities, and a community service or servicelearning component. Approximately one third of theafter-school programs offer their participants free timeactivities. The text box on the following page describesa program at an elementary school. The program istypical in providing a range of activities after school. Itdiffers from some other programs, however, becausemany of the activities are provided by teachers. None-theless, it provides a snapshot of what is possible.

Programs vary in the amount of time they commit todifferent after-school activities. Across all programs,academic activities take precedence: in a typical week,39 percent of the after-school time is spent on home-work help, tutoring and/or academic enrichment. Justover 19 percent of the time is spent on cultural or cre-ative enrichment activities, and another 19 percent isspent in some type of athletic activity. The remaining23 percent of programs' after-school hours arc takenup by a variety of other activities: 5 percent on careerpreparation; 7 percent on leadership and decision-making activities; 7 percent on community service orservice learning; and 4 percent was free time.


An After-School ESS Program in an ElementarySchool

The school runs programsfor children and their fami-lies. After school, there are activities from 3:00p.m. to5:30p.m. for approximately 50 youth. From 3:00p.m. to3:45p.m., children can get help on their homework fromhigh school youth who act as group leaders and men-tors. A snack follows, and from 4:00p.m. to 5:00p.m.the children engage in a structured activity, the topic ofwhich changes weekly (e.g., substance abuse preven-tion education, arts and crafts). From 5:00p.m. to5:30p.m. children have free time to read, color or playboard games until their parents pick them up. Theactivity runs throughout the school year.

Teachers at the school run a variety of activities suchas drama, science, hiking, multicultural and art clubs.The clubs are scheduled for one or two days per weekafter school. In the science club, we observed childrenworking on a volcano project that involved makingvolcanoes that erupted as well as reading aboutvolcanoes and hearing the teacher tell stories aboutvolcanoes from her experience. The activities lastapproximately 8 to 12 weeks before a new cyclebegins.

Teachers also offer family math and reading clubactivities that target parents of third graders who aremost at risk of academic failure. Parents and youthparticipate together, and parents learn strategies forhelping their children with their academic work. Suchstrategies include tips on how to help children thinkthrough a problem and how to encourage them in theirwork.

In the morning, program staff offer morning homeworkhelp on an informal basis to children who feel theyneed it. On weekends, the city Parks and Recreationdepartment provides recreational activities on theschool playground for area youth. Once or twice ayear, a Saturday pancake breakfast is held to bringteachers, school staff, parents and youth together in asocial setting.

Parents in the ethnically diverse community that theelementary school serves attend ESL, computer andother parent education courses. Some parentprograms are held during the school day and others areheld after school.

Across the models, there are modest differences in thetime allotted to different types of activities. Commu-nity Schools dedicate more time to academic and ser-vice activities than do all three other models. Bridges

8


to Success programs tend to spend slightly more timein academic and cultural or creative enrichment activi-ties than do Beacon. Beacon programs offer more ath-letic activities than do any other model, spending twicethe amount of time in athletic activities than do Bridgesprograms, the next most likely to offer sports.

Despite modest model differences, all the programsoffer many hours of academically oriented activities.Most partners and parents agreed that academic sup-port is important. In addition, academic activities,especially homework help, are relatively easy to set up.

By design, youth participation across activities and pro-grams varies. Within any ESS program there may besome activities that meet once or twice per week andothers that meet daily. Some run for two or threehours after school, and youth participate in two orthree separate activities during that time, as is the casein the YMCA program discussed in the text box on theprevious page.

Summer ProgramsApproximately three- quarters of ESS programs offeredprogramming during Summer 1999. The structure ofthese programs varies more widely than that of theafter-school programs.

On average, programs offer six hours of activity onweekdays for approximately six weeks during the sum-mer. Some programs operate in the morning, othersstraddle the middle of the day and some stretch intothe early evening. Several programs are scheduled todovetail with morning summer school programsstudents attend academic classes in the morning andstay at school for ESS activities in the afternoon. Suchcoordination eases the task of recruiting because aready pool of participants is already at the school.

Summer programs also have a tendency to serveyounger youth, regardless of the level of the school inwhich they are located. In one of the Beacon centersvisited, program staff noted that serving younger youthserves the interests of both parents with day care needsand programs that wish to enroll many children. Forexample, in its first summer of operation, one Beacon

center located in a middle school found its activities formiddle school youth undersubscribed, while its activi-ties for elementary youth were fully enrolled. As aresult, the next summer's programming was designedspecifically for elementary school students.

Program offerings in the summer vary. Like the afterschool programs, most summer programs providesome type of academic activity, a cultural or creativeenrichment activity, and an athletic activity. Time inthese activities is more evenly distributed than it is dur-ing the school year, with 23 percent of time beingspent in academics, 23 percent in cultural or creativeenrichment, and 27 percent in athletics. The remain-ing 27 percent of time is spread across career prepara-tion activities (6%), decision-making and leadershipactivities (9%), community service or service learning(5%), and free time (6%). To a large extent, this morebalanced programming reflects a natural shift in priori-ties. Homework help is dropped as an activity, whiletime spent on academic enrichment (in science, math,reading, etc.) remains strongthe hours of enrichmentoffered during the summer increases slightly. The textbox on the following page describes a summer programin a middle school.

Model differences in summer programs are subtle butnotably similar to those found in after- school activities.Bridges programs spend a moderately greater amountof time in academic, cultural and creative enrichmentactivities, while Beacon programs spend more time inathletic activities. Only two Community School pro-grams run summer programs, while no WEPIC pro-grams do so.

As an addition to standard ESS summer programming,numerous programs coordinate with community orga-nizations to have their youth placed in summer camps.Organizations like the YMCA, Boys & Girls Clubs andsmaller local nonprofits run free and low-cost summercamps for the youth in their communities. Throughpartnerships with these organizations, ESS staff recom-mend their students for the camps, where slots arereserved for them. During our site visits, we observedthat these partnerships worked well and bencfitted theyouth involved.

19

18

A Summer ESS Program in a Middle School

The Beacon program is scheduled for six weeks in thesummer. Although the program serves primarily middleschool youth during the school year, it serves a largeproportion of elementary school students in thesummer. Approximately 100 youth/day attend theprogram.

The program provides a daily summer camp thatprovides elementary school youth with recreational andcultural learning opportunities. The summer programrelies heavily on youth staff-12 are employed for thesummer. Two of the youth staff are paid by a localsummer youth employment program, the rest are paidby the program. Youth staff assist in activity instructionand provide office and general support. During ourvisit, youth staff were in and out of the program's office,helping younger students with problems and ensuringthat they knew where they were going.

In addition to the camp, there are activities once ortwice a week for both elementary and middle schoolyouth The activities vary. A nutrition and fitnessactivity accommodates approximately 12 youth andmeets two afternoons per week for four hours. Youth inthe class cook, exercise and learn about healthynutrition. A low-rider model car club meets two timesper week in which youth build customized model cars.The activity instructors act as positive role models forLatino youth. A basketball clinic meets four times perweek in the afternoon for four hours. A gang educationprogram meets twice per week for an hour and a half inthe afternoon. The group serves 20 youth on a regularbasis and permits other youth from the Beacon to joinin activities that interest them; a computer lab meetsfour times per week after lunch; and Hip Hop Dancemeets twice per week in the afternoons. Other summeractivities include open gym, soccer, swimming andfootball.

In accordance with Beacon philosophy and practice,many instructors encourage youth to join their activitiesinformally. As a result, youth involved in the basketballclinic might spend part of the afternoon in the gangeducation program or the nutrition and fitness class.

Before-school, During-school andWeekend or Holiday ProgramsSince fewer before-school, during-school and weekendor holiday programs arc being run, they do not easilylend themselves to systematic comparison; but our vis-its to the intensive sites make it possible to describe thetypes of activity provided.


Before-School ProgrammingAt the time of the report, only four programs hadbefore-school programs. Of these, two are CommunitySchools and two are Bridges to Success programs.Three of the four programs operate in elementaryschools (the fourth is in a middle school). This may beexplained in part by the likelihood that elementaryschool students with working parents have the greatestneed for early morning day care.

Before-school programs run for a half-hour to an hourbefore the start of the school day, and tend to offeracademic support, enrichment activities and time tosocialize. Teachers in the one before-school programwe observed said they value the program because itallows them to have more meaningful one-on-one con-tact with youth. They said that the morning programallows the children to case into the school day andgives them an opportunity to socialize.

School-Day ProgrammingEleven programs operate during the regular schoolday: nine Bridges to Success programs, one Commu-nity School program and one WEPIC program.Beacon programs do not provide during-school activi-ties. Given the philosophies of both CommunitySchools and WEPIC, it is not surprising that they haveactivities during the school day. It is surprising, how-ever, that Bridges to Success models are almost as likelyto have activities during the school day as are the othertwo models (at least in the first year of operations),given that Bridges' mission does not stress integrationinto the school day as heavily. The national intermedi-ary helping the Bridges' cities, however, did stress theneed for "full coordination" with the school.

The structure and content of these activities vary morethan any othersome run for the duration of theschool day five days a week, others for only an hour ortwo over the course of school lunch periods. Modeldifferences arc difficult to identify because we have rel-atively limited data; however, it is interesting to notethat only Bridges programs offer mentoring during theschool day.

Weekend and Holiday ProgrammingApproximately half of the programs run weekend orholiday activities. Again, there is considerable variationin the frequency and structure of these programs. Inmany cases programs plan special events or activitiesfor youth and their families, including student-planned


community clean-up days, cultural fairs and sportingevents, or open-gym time. A few programs offer tradi-tional academic classes; others stage holiday parties ordinners. WEPIC programs arc the only model not tooffer weekend or holiday activities. Beyond this, modeldifferences arc not apparent.

Adult ProgramsApproximately a third of the programs offer adultactivities to community members and parents. Therange of activities is quite wide, but selection of activi-ties at any given school is limited: only three programscurrently offer more than one or two activities. Adultprograms offer educational opportunities such as ESL,GED, parenting, computer technology, citizenship, andFirst Aid and CPR classes. Other activities include rec-reational and fitness classes like aerobics or open gymtime, and social or family oriented activities.

We learned that building participation in these classesis sometimes difficult. Programs reported that parentsoften express interest in participating but seldomattend. Between the demands of work and family, par-ents have very busy schedules. Lack of transportationto and from the school, along with a lack of day careduring the classes, may limit participation. The nextstage of our research will look more closely at the chal-lenges and successes of adult programming.

Social Service OfferingsOnly a few programs provide social services to theyouth and families in their communities. These pro-grams consist mainly of health, mental health, legalaid and immigration services. The Gardner ElementarySchool in Boston (a Community School) is an exampleof a program with a well-developed social serviceprogram. It offers students and families referrals tolocal health and mental health clinics, conducts dentalscreenings in classrooms, provides check-ups for youthwho require care, runs a series of talks on basic healthissues such as hygiene and human sexuality, and pro-vides confidential legal counseling and workshops onimmigration procedures for community members,many of whom are immigrants.

The Gardner program is unusual in offering thisbroad array of services. In the first year of implementa-tion, most programs were consumed by the tasks ofproviding activities for youth. Budgetary constraints

also limited outreach and some school districts placedrestrictions on offering health services through schools.

Program QualityESS programs across the country strive to enrichyouth's lives by creating positive youth experiences thatpromote healthy social, intellectual, emotional andphysical growth. The importance of this pursuit makesassessing program quality a critical research task. Ayear into operations, we began our examination ofquality by observing a small sample of diverse activitiesand talking to student participants. The goal was todetermine what qualities are valued by the participantsand what key supports and opportunities are present inthese types of program. Given that coordinators weretrying out many of these activities for the first time, thegoal was not to make definitive statements about theprograms' quality. Instead, we hoped to identifydimensions of youth development programming thatmight be more easily implemented.

We observed program activities in five of the 10 inten-sive cities.' Our observations made two things imme-diately clear. First, ESS staff care deeply about the stu-dents in their programs. They often express this careby spending one-on-one time with youth seeking extraattention, by putting in longer hours than they arc paidfor, and by sometimes providing additional activityresources out of their own pockets to make activitiessuccessful. Likewise, youth commented favorably onthe program coordinators and activity providers.

Ms. Xis the perfect adult. She's verynice, interacts with us. She really cares.You wish you had her as your morn.

Youth

Such positive relationships between staff and studentsis an important indicator of program quality.

In addition to the quality of adult/youth relationships,we examined three other key dimensions of programquality: quality of peer relationships; structure andmanagement of activities; and opportunities for youthdecision-making. A total of 23 activities were observedin five sites, and most observations lasted between 30and 60 minutes.

20

Adult/Youth RelationshipsOne of the most important components of programquality involves positive relationships between adultstaff and youth. Positive relationships are marked bynumerous factors including staff members' capacity toremain accessible during an activity, answer questionsand offer help or support to ensure that each youthachieves a level of success. Youth's responsiveness tostaff instruction is also an important component. Forexample, students may seem eager to please staff byremaining on task and listening to staff instruction. Anactivity provider can be equally responsive to youth bylistening attentively, calling students by name, smilingand gently joking with them.

Of the four components of quality, positive adult-youth relationships was consistently the strongest inour observations. Staff worked hard to make time withyouth both fun and meaningful, and many seemed toexude a natural fondness for their young charges. Themajority of qualitative observation notes highlight this.Offering caring attention to individual youth is anessential marker of quality, even in group activities.Instructors in programs provide instrumental supportranging from commenting on youth's progress toencouraging youth to come to them with questionsabout their tasks. To support individual youth, staffcirculate throughout the activity to check on each oneand make sure he or she is doing well.

In some cases youth have difficulty or seem detached,and some staff are skilled in responding to individualneeds. The following account describes such anoccasion:

When they went outside to play an ani-mal tag game, one overweight girl whowas wearing glasses ran across the tagline last and then acted like there was aproblem with her glassesbut it seemedmore likely that she was uncomfortablebecause she was slower than the other stu-dents and the last to finish. [The staffperson] ran over to check on her andasked her if she wanted to swing on theswings instead of play tag. She wanted toswing and went over to do that. [The


staff person] started up a second round oftag and then told the group he was goingto take a short break. He ran over to jointhe girl with glasses on the swings for a

while. He sympathized with her aboutthe glasses and then talked about othermore fun things.

Low student-to-staff ratios promote this kind of one-on-one interaction. In looking toward the future, sev-eral school coordinators expressed their concern that asyouth participation rates increase, this kind of qualityone-on-one time may diminish.

Positive adult/youth relationships are enhanced by staffefforts to recognize students' accomplishments in activ-ities. Most often we observed staff giving verbal praisesuch as "good job," "nice" or "looks great." Sometimesa staff person fostered recognition of accomplishmentsby encouraging youth to comment on and praise theirpeers' work. In one activity the staff person took flat-tering individual photographs of each student in deco-rative hats they had made the week before. Sheplanned to post the photos on a bulletin board at theschool.

In focus groups, youth noted that they liked and appre-ciated the attention they received from adults in theprograms:

Before youth council meetings, we spendabout 20 minutes talking about our dayand one thing we are proud of. That'swhat I meanan adult that I can talktoeven if we tell them what we're doing[wrong] , they don't get all mad. Like[the school coordinator] we joke around.

Structure and ManagementThe positive nature of adult/youth relationships isheavily influenced by the way staff structures and man-ages activities. This involves setting up age-appropriatebehavioral demands that are clear to participants andstriking a balance between being firm yet warm. Inthis way staff can maintain authority without beingoverly controlling. Many staff did this well and man-aged difficult situations calmly.

22


With middle school and high school aged students,good management often means being flexible andsomewhat hands-off. Field notes from observations ofan art activity exemplify this style:

The class is loosely structured and man-aged. The instructor tells the studentseverything they need to know to getstarted and then she lets them progressindependently. She consistently but casu-ally checks on their work and will offervarious suggestions and supportivecomments.

Some youth with whom we spoke clearly valued thisapproach, noting that:

We don't want the adults to always be onus, telling us, 'you have to do this andyou have to do that."

We did, however, see activities for older youth thatwere highly structured, yet successful at attractingteens. In one school, high school youth in a leadershipgroup had very strict rules about behavior and engagedin a series of initiation rites to join the group. Theyouth's behavior was strictly monitored, and youthwho did not follow the group's regulations were cen-sured. The youth, however, expressed considerablepride in their group membership and perceived theregulations as necessary. The youth had been instru-mental in developing and enforcing the group's strictregulations. Therefore, although the rigid structurehad originally been advocated by the instructor, theyouth adopted it as their own. Thus, for at least someyouth, even highly structured and regulated activitiesmay be appealing.

For younger youth, good management requires morestructure. A karate instructor for preschool and kinder-garten students developed an effective technique:

Interaction between the instructor andyouth was extremely positive. Theinstructor had the students' rivetedattention for the duration of the class andalthough he maintained discipline by pre

tending to be very stern and keeping thestudents in neat rows, his act of being afirm disciplinarian was so over-done thatstudents realized he was playing withthem. For much of the class he had thestudents giggling with delight andamusement but at the same time work-ing hard to follow his instructions.

Overly structured instruction styles had drawbacks.Some observers identified cases of firm instructor con-trol and instruction in which youth were expected to bequiet and controlled throughout the class and onlyinteract when called upon by the teacher. While youthin these situations usually responded by behaving welland staff /student relationships remained positive, thecontrol sometimes stymied creativity and peer interac-tion, as the following notes suggest:

The instructor for this activity main-tained strong command of the class. Shegave a brief talk in front of the studentsabout [the art project] before she beganand while she effectively elicited a positive

amount of participation from students shegave numerous prompts for students to bequiet and listen to what she was saying.It was very important to her that she hadtheir attention. It appeared that thisfirm consistency on her part may havelimited positive peer interactions withinthe activity.

Youth in focus groups provided consistent informa-tion about how adults could structure and overseeactivities that appealed to them. They liked staff pres-ence because adults could mediate potential disputesamong youth:

Adults should make sure that peopledon't fight.

They also liked adults because, "they help give youideas and provide resources. They help when you getstuck." However, they were very clear that how adultsapproached them was important, noting that they didnot like to be told rules repeatedly, did not like being

22

yelled at, and liked to be treated respectfully. The fol-lowing account highlights how the youth felt adultscould help out when there is a problem:

Yesterday we had to do a Blizzard Pro-jectlike you had to list the most impor-tant things that you needed if you werestuck in a blizzard. James said that aknife should be the first thing so that youcould kill your food.' Jessica said that alighter should be the first thing so thatyou could cook the food. They arguedabout it; we teased Jessica, and she cried.We shouldn't have teased her, but it wasa good debate. [The school coordinator]talked to us in the car [on the way home] .It was good, the way he approached it. Ateacher would have forced us to do some-

thing, but he just persuades us. He'd talkto you and make you want to apologize.We apologized today.

Peer SupportThe third aspect of program quality, peer support, isclosely linked to staffs establishment of good relation-ships with youth and appropriate activity structure.Positive, friendly and supportive peer relations can beeffectively fostered by staff who serve as role modelsand encourage youth to cooperate, share ideas, andhelp or teach each other. Peer support is visible inyouths' friendly interactions and comfort with eachother, and most of the activities we observed had suchamicable exchanges. Youth participated in group dis-cussions. They cheered each other on in informal races.They helped one another achieve activity goals. Inour focus groups, youth talked about how much theyliked the interactions with their peers and the opportu-nities they sometimes had to get together with youthfrom other schools who were involved in the local ini-tiatives. For example, in one city a summer programincluded informal football games between youth at twoschools, which they found exciting and interesting.Depending on the structure of the program, youth atsome extended-service schools also benefitted frominteractions with youth from other age groups, schoolsor neighborhoods.


Decision-Making and LeadershipDecision-making and leadership opportunities wereobserved with less consistency than were quality rela-tionships among peers and between youth and staff.Having decision-making and leadership as key parts ofprograms required planning on the part of activity pro-viders and, sometimes, staff training in youth develop-ment practices. Because many programs worked underconsiderable pressure to begin programming as soon aspossible, time for this kind of planning and trainingwas typically in short supply.

In the activities where decision-making was visible,youth were invited to help plan the activity and/orwere given opportunities to decide how they wouldcarry it out. When dealing with children, instructorsoften determined the activity but let the children cre-atively decide how they would go about completingit. The following account from field notes illustratesthis balanced and effective division of decision-makingopportunities:

Although [the activity] follows a curricu-lum, the youth are able to make decisionson selecting projects and carrying themout. The Indian Puzzle Project allowedthe youth to solve problems creatively

lack of space outside posed a problem incutting the wood but the youth managedto use an old chair to stabilize the wood,while one cut and the other held the chairand wood. The instructor practiced a"hands -off" approach, assisting only whennecessary, which provided the youth withseveral decision-making opportunities.

Another example occurred in a map-making exercise:

Although the youth were fairly young inage, this activity offered a wide range ofdecision-making and leadership opportu-nities. For instance all youth designed amap and as a group had to decide whichmap to use, which clues to use and whereto place the clues.

Staff are clearly instrumental in creating decision-mak-ing opportunities for youth. Youth reported in focusgroups that they wanted adult support, "sometimes it'sgood when adults push you and tell you that you can


do it," but they also "don't want the adults to always beon us." Not all activity staff we observed, however,were equally skilled in encouraging active decision-making among youth, even at modest levels, as the fol-lowing accounts suggest:

Youth were allowed to chose the book they

wanted read. However, when they chosea book that was considered "too long" by

the instructor, they were encouraged tochose another one.

With the Plaster of Paris tree, studentswere instructed on exactly how and whereto put the plaster.

If providing youth with opportunities to make deci-sions about the way they carry out tasks is one end ofthe decision-making continuum, then providing oppor-tunities for leadership may be the other end. There arevery few examples of leadership opportunities in theprograms' activities. Leadership can take variousforms. It is most obvious when youth are given oppor-tunities to be group leaders or captains. Yet it is alsoapparent when activities are designed for youth to helpeach other as tutors or informally make decisions as agroup. One such example occurred in a summerlibrary program where youth were free to look at booksor play a selection of board games. Many of the youthwho chose to play games in small groups developedinformal leadership structures whereby older youthguided younger youth by helping them learn the rulesand procedures of the game.

Middle and high school students were likely to havemore formal opportunities for leadership. Some stu-dents involved in their own after-school teen clubswere guided by ESS staff to plan activities and eventsthat interested them:

This activity offered many opportunitiesfor decision-making and leadership. Thecarnival had many aspects to it and allyouth had a part in making sure it wascarefiilly planned out. For instance, cus-todial issues were a concern for the carni-val, because it was being held on school

grounds. The group, with help from theinstructor, was able to call a meetingwith a representative from the custodial

department. The questions and answersranged from trash can usage to the timeat which to end the carnival. The youthand the custodial rep seemed to be at easewith the meeting.

The evaluation has just begun to examine the activities'youth development qualities. This initial examinationexplored youth's perception of quality and examinedquality in a range of first-year activities. In general, thequality of the activities we observed appeared to berelatively high despite the newness of the programs. Aswe more systematically study the activities across thecities, we will explore what factors and practices areassociated with higher-quality activities. For example,the activities provided by established youth-servingorganizations may be stronger than those created byprogram staff in the schools. Such information will beimportant for identifying effective strategies for imple-menting after-school programs.

SummaryEven though the prototypical models emphasize differ-ent goals, what practitioners aim for in their programsis remarkably similar. They want their programs toenhance the academic performance of the children, pro-vide them with positive peer and adult relationships,and give them something productive to do in a safeenvironment.

A strong and consistent commitment to academic workis present across programs irrespective of subtle varia-tions in the models' visions. We speculate that thisoccurs because of the relative ease with which theseprograms, particularly homework help, can be set up,and because most partners (including parents) agreethat academic support is of primary importance.

Given the similarities in goals, it is not surprising thatto a large degree the activities of cities adapting differ-ent models are distributed fairly similarly across activityareasacademics, enrichment, sports, and other cre-ative and cultural classes. During the past school year,approximately 40 percent of activity hours were aca-demic, 20 percent were cultural or creative enrichmentactivities, 20 percent were athletic, and the remainderwere various. Summer program offerings were evenlysplit among these four areas, reflecting the reducedurgency of academic pursuits during the summer andyouth's desire to be more physically active.


However, which model the cities adapted does exert aninfluence. Community Schools and Bridges programsoffer somewhat more academic activities than do theother types of programs, while Beacon offer more ath-letic and cultural opportunities, consistent with theirstrong youth development emphasis. Thus, during thisfirst year of implementation, the specific activities andservices offered in the various programs were affectedboth by the model they were adapting and whatappeared to be fairly standard goals and concerns.

Program quality is something we will continue toexamine more as programs mature. Our early obser-vations show that very positive relationships betweenstaff and youth and among peersboth critical signs ofqualitywere exhibited in the activities even duringthe first year of operations. Examples of decision-making opportunities and leadership, on the otherhand, were observed less consistently during the pro-grams' early implementation. We expect that as theprograms mature and the staff receive more trainingand become more experienced we will observe activitiesthat incorporate more youth input opportunities.

Who Shows Up and How They Get There 25

W. Who Shows Up and How TheyGet There

Far too many low-income youth lack opportunities inthe after-school hours to apply and broaden the skillsthey are learning in supervised, fun settings. Theopening of ESS's school-based after- school programsprovided the student bodies of those schools withexpanded opportunities. In this chapter we discusswhich students took advantage of the activities duringtheir first year of operation and how they wererecruited. We describe the reasons parents reportedfor sending their children to these new school-basedprograms. Because some commentators worry thatschool -based after school programs might dispropor-tionately serve more engaged students, we comparecharacteristics of the youth who do and do not partici-pate. This allows us to address questions of the relativepenetration of the program into different segments ofthe school population. We also describe the range ofrecruitment methods ESS school coordinators used thefirst year to provide potentially useful information toothers starting similar programs. The specific ques-tions we address are:

What are some of the characteristics of youthwho enrolled in the programs in school year1999?Did the programs, in their first year, drawequally from all segments of the student popu-lation?What recruitment methods are used to bringstudents to the programs?

Why Parents Enrolled Their ChildrenChildren's involvement in after- school programs isdetermined not just by themselves but, especially foryounger children, by their parents. They and their par-ents must learn about the program; the parents mustdecide to allow their children to enroll and the childmust want to attend. Thus, before presenting the char-acteristics of the children who enrolled in the pro-grams, we discuss why the parents wanted their chil-dren to be involved.

In the intensive research cities, parents filled out abrief questionnaire when they enrolled their child.' Todate, data from approximately 800 parents are avail-able. The reasons parents gave for involving their chil-dren, shown in Table 4.1, reveal what they hoped the

26

Table 4.1Parents' Reasons for Enrolling Youth in ESSAfter-school Programs

My child wanted to get involved. 76%My child can make friends and have fun. 54

It provides affordable after-school care. 19

It provides dependable after-school care. 21

It will help my child do better in school. 53School staff suggested that my child enroll. 12

It is a safe place for my child after school. 41

My child can get to and from the program easily 30and safely.

Sample Size 800

Note: Distribution adds to more than 100 percent becauseas many choices as applied could be checked.

Table 4.2Number of Youth Enrolled in ESS Programs bySpring 1999

Number of YouthCity by Models Enrolled

BeaconsDenverMinneapolisOaklandSavannah

BridgesCentral FallsFlintGreensboroughJacksonsvilleMesaMissoulaPhiladelphia

862 (3 schools)850 (3 schools)n/a748 (3 schools)

398 (3 schools)380 (3 schools)256 (2 schools)300 (5 schools)

1,074 (3 schools)559 (5 schools)749 (7 schools)

Community SchoolsBoston 145 (1 school)Long Beach n/aSalt Lake 90 (1 school)

WEPICAlbuquerque n/aAurora 90 (1 school)Atlanta 40 (1 school)Denver n/a

n/a = not available.


program would do for their child and for them.'Three-quarters of the parents reported that their childwanted to be involved in the program and more thanhalf (54%) saw it as an opportunity to enable their chil-dren to have fun and make friends. All parents, nomatter what their economic or social background, wantto provide their children with these types of enrichingopportunities. In poor communities, such as thoseserved by ESS, however, few of these opportunitiesexist, parents may not be able to afford those that doexist, parents and children often do not know aboutthem if they do exist, or parents are concerned aboutthe safety of the services (Branch, 1998). Thus, theESS program was seen by the vast majority of parentswho were able to enroll their youth as a most welcomeenriching addition to their children's lives.

Four out of 10 parents stated that the safety of the pro-gram was an important factor. And yet, one-third(30%) of the parents still worried about the safety oftheir child's journey to and from the program. As wewill see when we discuss the challenges the programsfaced, safety considerations had both cost and pro-gramming implications.

Academic achievement was also a common reason forenrolling children. Half the parents hoped the pro-gram would be able to help their children with school.In conversations with parents and staff, we were toldrepeatedly about the parents' desire that the programhelp their children with their homework. Most schoolcoordinators we spoke with about homework help toldus that although they wanted to do more enrichmentactivities, they felt pressure from parents to concentrateon homework.

Somewhat surprisingly, while many advocates mentionthe child-care role of these programs, only one in fiveparents mentioned this as a reason for enrolling theirchildren. This may be because in general ESS programsviewed themselves as youth development programs,not primarily child care programs.

Profile of ESS Student Populations andParticipantsTypically, enrollment in any new initiative is modestthe first year, as staff put the program in place. Yet inthe spring of their first year of implementation, ESSprograms enrolled 6,000 students. Table 4.2 showshow they were distributed across models and cities.


On average, the Beacons had larger programs, with aSpring 1999 enrollment of 273 students per school.Bridges programs averaged 133 students per school;Community Schools averaged 118 students per schooland the WEPIC school enrolled 40 students. (Recallthat the WEPIC cities did not have a planning periodlike the other three models; therefore, they are pro-grammatically younger.) As we will discuss in ChapterVII, Beacon Centers had relatively large budgets com-pared to Bridges and WEPIC programs. Their abilityto hire more staff and activity providers may explainwhy they served more children.

Before describing them, we profile the student popula-tions in the schools in which ESS operates. In theorganizational surveys, program staff provided us withinformation about their total student populations andthe characteristics of students who enrolled in the pro-gram. As discussed earlier, ESS programs are locatedin schools serving a large proportion of low-incomefamilies: program staff estimated that 72 percent ofstudents receive free or reduced-priced lunch. The ESSschools are ethnically and racially diverse: 42 percent ofthe youth across all schools are African American, 30percent white, 23 percent Latino, and 5 percentbelonged to some other racial group.

The students who actually enroll in programs are quitesimilar to the general student populations from whichthey are drawn. The ethnic and racial make -up of theenrollees was: 45 percent African American, 33 percentwhite, 19 percent Latino, and 3 percent some otherracial group. Thus, the programs appear to have beenequally attractive to all groups.

Table 4.3Enrollees' Gender by School Level

Male Female

Total 49% 51%

Elementary 46% 54%

Middle 51% 49%

High 49% 51%

Sample Size 2,157 2,266

We also found that the student bodies are split evenlybetween boys and girls. Participation of girls in extra-curricular programs typically declines dramatically asthey get olderperhaps because they take on morehousehold responsibilities (Warren, 1999; Gamboneand Arbreton, 1997). However, Table 4.3 shows thateven in the middle and high school programs, girls arebeing effectively recruited. This is an importantaccomplishment.

We know more about the enrollees in a subsample inthe intensive research cities where parents have pro-vided us with more data, including financial informa-tion. The demographic characteristics of the youth inschools in these intensive research cities are remarkablysimilar to those in all the ESS schools. In particular, 48percent of the intensive research schools' student popu-lation are African American, 29 percent white and 15percent Latino. Three-quarters of the student popula-tion qualifies for free- or reduced-priced lunch. Table4.4 presents data from approximately 800 forms. Wefound that these early enrolling children are slightly lesslikely than their respective student bodies to come fromlow-income families. While three-quarters of theschool populations qualify for free- or reduced-pricedlunch, only two-thirds (66%) of enrollees qualify. Sim-ilarly, the programs were less able to draw in childrenfrom single-parent homes. While 37 percent of thestudents in these schools live with only one parent, 26percent of the enrollees arc from single-parent families.Thus, while ESS serves thousands of poor children, atleast in these cities, it may be that poor families areslightly less likely to have signed their children up inthe first year of operation than were nonpoor families

perhaps because they do not know about the pro-gram or they want to see the quality of the programfirst. However, it should be kept in mind that the pro-grams are quite new and the data from the parents rep-resent information on the earlybirds, the first childrenwho signed up for the program. It is typical that thefirst participants in any voluntary program arc the mostmotivated or most involved.

The sense that these early enrollers were students whowere perhaps more assertive and involved was sharedby many coordinators. The parents most involved withtheir children were the ones who responded to theenrollment opportunity.


Table 4.4The students who attend the program

Selected Characteristics of Youth at the Time of currently are the involved students. The

ESS Enrollment challenge has been involving youth whoare not involved in activities. [It] seemsthat most don't want to be involved inanything or they are already very busy.

Characteristic ESS InitialSample

Gender (%)Female 56Male 44

Ethnicitva (%)Black or African American 29White 48Latino 17Other 14Missing 1

Youth's Grade in School (%)30Grade 3 or lower

Grade 4 13Grade 5 11

Grade 6 21

Grade 7 13Grade 8 10Grade 9 1

Grade 10 or higher 1

Number of Adults in the Household ( %)261

2 583 84 or more 6Missing 2

Number of Children in the Household,Including Enrolled Youth (%)

151

2 373 254 135 or more 9Missing 1

Receive Free/Reduced Price Lunch (%)Free lunch 56Reduced price lunch 10Neither 32Missing 2

Annual Household Income (%)21Less than $11,000

$11,000 to $14,000 12$14,001 to $20,000 13$20,001 to $30,000 16$30,001 to $40,000 8Over $40,000 15Missing 15

Sample Size 803

a Distribution adds to more than 100 percent because as manychoices as applied could be checked.

School Coordinator

Many coordinators expressed a desire to be doing morein terms of outreach to at-risk children. For example,one coordinator stated: "I feel like we're providing scr-vices to many needy kids, but I would like to servemore highly at-risk students." The coordinatorsdescribed the most difficult to reach population as lowincome, non-English-speaking, behind in school, poorin attendance, prone toward detention and lacking insupport at home. These are the children who mostdislike school, or whose parents are too busy or dis-tracted to notice even a school-based program.

As discussed below, coordinators and principals devisedmore proactive strategies to reach this population, suchas directly contacting parents or holding registration inparticular apartment buildings or neighborhoods.

Recruitment Strategies and ChallengesRecruitment involves notifying and convincing bothstudents and their parents about the benefits of theprogram. Programs have developed a variety ofstrategies.

The initial part of the summer registra-tion was tough. We were calling kids'homes, during the school year we'd stopand talk with kids in the halls, a thou-sand flyers got passed out to the studentsin the school and we drove out to like 10houses to drop off flyers for parents. Flyers

were also posted at different places like thecommunity center. We did a lot of call-ing and we really needed to highlightthat the program was free and that wecould give rides home. We invited par-ents here for a snack one day so that we

could tell them about the program.Program Staff


Like this program, most consider recruitment to be anongoing task. Staff consistently reported a strong reli-ance on informal grapevines:

Word of mouth is the best method. Peoplewho've experienced the Beacons can go off

and tell people about how great it is.Program Staff

Many recruitment strategics are undertaken at theschools. Activity providers and program coordinatorsmake presentations in classrooms and at assemblies.They set up information tables at Back-to-School andOpen House nights. They also circulate in schoollunchroomssometimes doing demonstrations toattract youth's interest. Coordinators reported thatthey recruit youth by mingling with them in the hallsand telling them about the activities. Several programseven hold special events like barbeques or festivals todraw in students, families and community members.Parents are also invited to the school for coffee sothey can meet with coordinators and learn about theprograms.

Teachers are included as key links in the word-of-mouth chain. ESS staff present activity information tothem at faculty meetings and ask them to hand out orpost flyers, tell students about the programs in theirhomerooms or classes, and give their permission forESS staff to do presentations in their classes.

Because so much of recruitment is school-based, thequality of relationships with school staff has a moreimmediate impact on the case or difficulty of recruit-ment. Interacting with youth in the lunchrooms, post-ing information on school bulletin boards, presentinginformation to youth in classrooms and makingannouncements over school public address systems allrequire administrative consent. While few principalsactually prohibit this kind of involvement, some domore than others to ensure that ESS staff have easyaccess to facilities. Furthermore, programs that havebetter relationships with and support from teachershave an easier time recruiting.

School-based strategics are not always effective forparents. Many coordinators, therefore, try to contactparents by phone and mailings. In multilingual pro-grams, flyers and brochures are published in multiplelanguages to draw in non-English speakers. Program

staff often mentioned that simply sending informationhome with youth does not guarantee that it reachesparents; direct contact proves to be important. A fewESS staff make targeted home visits and others deliverbrochures to parents' doors, especially to attract need-ier students. These coordinators felt that if parentsknew about the array of activities ESS provides theywould encourage their children to enroll.

ESS partners and collaborators help to advertise theprogram through their own professional networks.They post information at their centers or offices andpass information on to other youth-serving organiza-tions or community centers. A few programs arrangefor the broadcast of radio announcements or the publi-cation of newspaper articles. Staff and local initiativeleaders think that raising public awareness about.pro-grams will not only increase youth participation butalso help lay the groundwork for beneficial partnershipswith potential funders and collaborators.

Although many program staff desire to serve the youththey consider most at risk, they also reported thatrecruiting needier students requires special effort.Referrals from principals, teachers and student supportteams are the most common means through which pro-grams attempt to recruit such at-risk youth. Severalschools have developed targeted recruitment strategiesdesigned to be less stigmatizing than referrals. Forexample, one school holds registration in public hous-ing or low-income apartment units. In another, themanagement team unofficially closed the program tofamilies who were financially better off:

We targeted the program to our low-income kids...1 tell the other parents,"No space available." We targeted ourrecruitment by going to particularapartment complexes. This way we limitedthe audience and recruited there.

Principal

Another way programs, particularly Beacons programs,encourage the participation of poorly performing stu-dents is to associate their programs with their leadagencies and not the school. By having a strong Boys& Girls Club or YWCA identity, the lead agency hopesthat students, especially those who may be wary ofschool programs, will be more attracted to the pro-gram. It is too early to say whether this assumption is

30

accurate; students and staff spoke of children beingattracted by particular activitiessuch as a climbingwall or basketballnot an organization.

Factors Affecting RecruitmentThe amount of energy program staff put into outreachand recruitment is impressive, particularly at the start-up of initiatives. Although many factors influence thesuccess or difficulty with which programs are able torecruit, two seem especially central: the age of theyouth being served and the number of other youth-serving organizations and programs in the community.

Age of Youth. ESS staff reported that it is significantlyeasier to recruit younger youth for programs (reflectedin Table 4.4). They found that elementary school stu-dents have fewer extracurricular activities to juggle, andtheir parents often depend on summer programming tomeet their day -care needs. Providing a regimen ofactivities four to five days a week proves to be essentialin attracting elementary students. As the comments ofone school coordinator illustrate, some programslearned about this the hard way:

We had activities Monday, Wednesdayand Friday for little kids, and familieshad trouble bringing them just for threedays a week. What families need is daycare.

School Coordinator

Developing successful programs for high school youthis a different story. Unlike elementary school children,older students are less likely to attend a five-day-a-weekprogram because they have busier schedules, increasedresponsibilities and greater freedom. A school coordi-nator summarized some of the issues involved in out-reach to older youth:

The high school kids have jobs and are

inconsistent in coming. They help theirparents with rent or they don't havecars...I'd have to drive a lot of them home.I mean a lot. And they're really inconsis-tent. It's been hard to reach the goal of200 students.

School Coordinator


Another school coordinator explained that reachingolder middle school youth is also a challenge:

I would especially like to reach more 712

and e grade students, but they tend tobe involved in more activities after schoolhours that aren't sponsored by our project.

School Coordinator

All youth programs struggle to involve older youth,even well established YMCAs or Boys & Girls Clubs(Gambone and Arbrcton, 1997). ESS school coordi-nators, however, devised several creative programmingideas to attract teens. One middle school program de-cided to begin charging an activity fee in the hope thatit would build youth's commitment to attend. Otherprograms found that teens enjoy organizing and partic-ipating in special events such as community serviceneighborhood clean-ups, running their own clubs andworking with younger youth as tutors, mentors or ESSstaff. Older youth are also drawn to programs thatassist them with job readiness and placement. Offeringteen programs with flexible open-door policies alongwith opportunities for leadership and loosely guidedautonomy seems most effective. Two of the highschool programs that offer student-run teen clubs givestudents the responsibility to develop their own clubnames, rules and activities. While it seems that in mostcases having a specific program image or identity is notthe main force influencing success in recruiting, it doesappear to help with older youth, especially those inhigh school.

Availability of Other Programs. A second major factoraffecting the demand for ESS programs is the availabil-ity of other youth programs. Programs found thatwhen several organizations are already running well-established daily activities for youth, school coordina-tors have much more difficulty attracting students.

[This] is one of the best cities for youthactivities. There's so much for kids to dothat you kind of have to compete for themto get into your program.

School Coordinator


Our real barrier to recruiting studentshas to do with the area. It's so concen-trated with different camps that we endup competing for the students. The otherprograms have niore access to the studentsbecause they're located in the school andthey have transportation [emphasisadded]. There are two housing projectsdirectly across the street from one of theprograms, so naturally they get a lot ofthose students.

School Coordinator

Availability of Transportation. The second quote pointsto another commonly mentioned recruitment barriertransportation. As we will discuss more fully in Chap-ter V, the inability of many programs to provide trans-portation home is a major barrier to participation for alarge proportion of students. In many schools, parentsarc required to pick up their children at 5:00p.m. or6:00p.m. Parents who are working at those times orfamilies that do not have cars may thus not be able toenroll their children in the program. We expect thatthis may have disproportionately been an issue for thepoorest families.

While most of these new programs ran into difficultyrecruiting students, a handful of programs did not.They easily reached their capacities. These programswere located in cities with few other accessible oppor-tunities for children and youth, and/or with schoolsthat had after-school programs in the past. This latterfact is evidence that enrollment does grow over time asprograms mature and gain strong reputations. In thesecities, we were able to observe enrollment challengesthat other programs will face in the future when theyreach capacity. For example, if more youth want toparticipate than there is capacity for, how will decisionsbe made about who will be selected? Will priority begiven to youth who previously enrolled in the programor will needier students be given preference? So far inthe handful of programs that are already at capacity, aneffort is made to maintain slots for youth who had pre-viously participated in ESS. In this way, service provi-sion carries some continuity for the youth and theirfamilies who made an early commitment to the pro-gram. Overall, however, programs seemed unclearabout how they would proceed in the face of heavyprogram demand. Strategies may become clearer as a

growing number of programs approach this stage intheir third year of operation.

SummaryLocated in poor neighborhoods, the ESS programsare reaching thousands of racially and ethnically diverselow-income children. We were impressed that, eventhough this was the first year of operation, most pro-grams served a hundred or more children. The Beaconcenters enrolled even more, averaging almost 275children per center, perhaps because they had moreresources to hire staff and activity providers.

Typically, the more involved children and their familiesarc the ones who first learn about and walk through thedoors of any new program or opportunity. So, too, itappears in ESS. Evidence suggests that more involvedstudents were among the first cohort to enroll. How-ever, this is not to suggest that many needy studentsdid not enroll. Our evidence indicates that approxi-mately two-thirds of the enrolled students qualify forfree or reduced-price lunch. Rather, this common ten-dency made coordinators realize that they needed touse more targeted recruitment strategies to reach theleast involved students and their families. Over time, asthe coordinators have more time for recruitment, evenmore of the hard -to -reach students will be drawn intoprograms. The evaluation will continue to follow thiskey issue.

Demand for the program was strong in the first year ofoperation, but not overwhelming in most cities. Anumber of factors contribute to this. Probably mostimportant is that the programs are fairly new: theyhave not yet established strong reputations among theparents and teachers of the school, and because word-of-mouth referrals are the most effective, we expectthat, over time, recruitment will become somewhateasier. Second, programs must reach not only the chil-dren but also their parents; communication with par-ents is challenging and often requires direct contact.Third, older youth and their parents appear to be lessattracted to the program than are elementary schoolchildren. Lastly, transportation issues limit demand forthe program. Many parents are unable to pick up theirchildren at the end of the day and feel uncomfortableabout having them walk home alone at 5:00p.m. or6:00p.m.


Although the programs faced many challenges duringtheir first full implementation year, they developedmany creative strategies for recruiting youth. We haveno doubt that over time more of the students in theschools will be drawn into the programs.

3

Addressing the Challenges in Schools 33

V. Addressing the Chaiienges inSchools

[Schools are] islands set apart from themainland of life by a deep moat... Adrawbridge is lowered at certain periodsduring the day in order that the part-time inhabitants may cross over to theisland in the morning and back to themainland at night.'

William G. Carr,1942 Address to the

National Congress ofParents and Teachers

The ESS programs join a growing cadre of after- schoolprograms located in public schools (Dryfoos, 1998).Indeed, a study done by the National Center for Edu-cation Statistics in 1997 found that approximately 30percent of all public schools and over 40 percent ofcenter-city schools have after-school activities.' Sincethat time, many new school-based after-school pro-grams have emerged around the country, fueled to nosmall degree by the growth in federal fundingforexample, the Department of Education's 21st CenturyCommunity Learning Center funding, the JusticeDepartment's Safe Schools/Healthy Students funding,and the Health and Human Services Child Care andDevelopment Block Grant. States and many founda-tions arc also encouraging communities to developschool-based programs.

Locating these programs in schools brings manystrengthscredibility, child-friendly environments,specialized facilities (computer labs and gyms)but italso brings unique challenges. These challenges rangefrom a perception that principals and school personneldisagree with program goals, to the challenges of keep-ing school space clean and well-maintained, to makingdecisions about how youth will get to and from school.Specifically, we address the following questions:

Do principals and program staff have differentgoals?What challenges arise with regard to usingschool space? What can programs do toaddress the challenges?What challenges arise with regard to transpor-tation? What solutions have programs found?

In this chapter, we discuss these challenges, theirunderlying causes and how programs attempt to mini-mize them.

Shared or Conflicting GoalsIn all four models, a partnership is required between anonprofit organization, such as a university or a youth-serving organization, and the school district. One ofthe firstand often ongoingchallenges school-basedprograms must face is to establish enough trustbetween school personnel and the staff of the nonprofitto permit implementation of the program to proceed assmoothly as possible.

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As we talked with people in the ESS cities at the begin-ning of the initiative, tensions between school person-nel and CBO staff implementing the ESS school initia-tive became obvious. Some CBO personnel reportedthat principals and teachers were only interested intheir students' test scores and did not support thebroad youth development focus of the initiative.School district administrations were often wary ofallowing CBOs into the schools, and principals com-plained that the CBOs did not adequately support theschool's mission.

In a series of in-depth interviews with staff from thefiscal and lead agencies as well as from the schools,however, we learned that the two groups actually holdvery similar goals for the initiative. The major themesthat emerged from the interviews are increasing aca-demic enrichment experiences, increasing youth devel-opment experiences, building the community andstrengthening community/school partnerships. Andalthough there is considerable diversity both acrossand within the cities with respect to individuals' goalsfor the initiative, we found relatively little connectionbetween individuals' views and the roles they took inthe initiative.

Most people, school staff included, believe that anideal after-school program should be a place foryouth to engage in a range of productive activities, thatit should be a collaboration between schools and com-munities, and that one of its productive activitiesshould be engaging in learning opportunities. Schoolpersonnel are only slightly more likely than are CBOstaff to emphasize the provision of academic supportsto students (26% vs. 21%). School personnel aremuch more likely, however, to emphasize the youthdevelopment promise of the programs. This tendencyruns counter to the presumption held by some of theCBO personnel that school-based personnel emphasizeacademics in after-school programs to the exclusion ofother kinds of positive activities. In fact, several princi-pals and other school district staff suggested that theyouth development aspects of the after-school pro-grams complement the schools' academic mission:1°

I don't really see the Beacons as enhanc-ing education. There are two parts ofeducation: cognitive learning and affec-tive learning. The Beacon supports thecognitive learning, but really promotes


the affective. It teaches kids how to beresponsible, how to act with one another,interpersonal skills, how to learn. That isthe set of skills that our population is des-

perately in need of. The other thing isthatIve been listening in these [Over-sight Committee] meetingsthey wantBeacons to be academic, provide tutoringand so forth, and I am really opposed tothat [because] our kids go to school seven

hours/day, and it's intense learning. Forthem to go to an after- school class and do

some tutoring is ridiculous...These kidsneed to have fun.

Principal

Time and communication helped reconcile the per-ceived differences in goals. Also, when coordinatorsbecame aware during homework help times that someof their children could barely read or do math, theybecame more sympathetic to school staff's desire that atleast some after school time be devoted to academicenrichment. Principals and teachers who observed thebehavior of certain problematic children improve afterthey started going to the after-school program alsocame to understand that the program was making thesechildren more able to learn during class time.

Space and ProgrammingThe availability and type of program space affects thetype and quality of activities that can be offered. Anobvious example of this occurred in several programswhere the community asked for a swimming programbut the school lacked ready access to a swimming pool.Similarly, if programs want to run a cooking class, anInternet class or art class, they require rooms with theappropriate accommodations.

Even when school space is available, it is not alwaysideal. Many ESS activities require open, multipurposeclassrooms that can accommodate activities like aero-bics or karate. Traditional classrooms crowded with30 to 50 desks are ill-suited for such classes. Thenumber of such activities is thus constrained by theavailability of appropriate space. Multipurpose andspecial rooms are often already in considerable demandin schools and therefore, when possible, must bereserved in advance. School coordinators report that itis difficult to run several concurrent activitieshome-work help, story time and a dance classin just one


multipurpose room, such as a cafeteria. In the begin-ning, as newcomers to the school, some programsfound they were the first to be denied a scheduled useif the school had a last-minute request from a teacherfor the room. The availability of appropriate space iscritical to the character of the program.

The Access ProblemIn seven of the 10 cities we visited, school coordinatorsmentioned that it is difficult to get the space they needfor their program. The underlying causes for this fric-tion between the program and the school are truecapacity constraints, financial constraints and trust.

Overcrowded schools. In four cities, we found thatthese limitations are partly a result of already over-crowded conditions in the schools. In one ESS middleschool in Minneapolis, built to accommodate 450,enrollment has grown to 800. Similarly, an ESS ele-mentary school in Missoula that normally served 225students had enrollment surge to 375 in Fall 1999.Student enrollment for the school district of LongBeach ballooned from 65,000 to over 90,000, and thepartnering ESS elementary school, with a capacity of360 students, had 900 youth in attendance and busedother neighborhood youth to schools that were lesscrowded. School facilities and equipment are alreadybeing heavily used. Even though the school principal isgenerous in sharing available space with the program, itis still extremely limited. The parent center, for exam-ple, is in the small foyer of the auditorium.

Not only must ESS compete with school staff'sdemands for often limited space after hours (formake-up tests and extra help sessions), but many ofthe schools we visited also host a variety of outsideorganizations, such as for-profit childcare programs orfee-for-service activities; all of whom need space. Inthis setting, ESS faces what some program coordina-tors reluctantly define as a competition for space.School administrators openly addressed the issue ofmaking decisions about the use of space by variousconstituencies:

Space was a problem. This year it was aproblem because we had so many agencieswho wanted to use the gym at the sametime that [the ESS program] wanted torun activities...Then we had teachers whowanted to use the library after school dur-

ing the [ESS] homework club. It wasprobably good that people learned toshare. We had the library split upateacher was riving testing while the home-work club was going on.

Principal

The need for trust. Overcrowded schools, however, areonly part of the explanation of why space availability isa challenge for all the programs. Principals are heldresponsible for the physical integrity of the schoolplant, and are thus hesitant to let the program useschool facilities unless they feel confident that schoolproperty will be respected. Limited in their capacity tofinance the maintenance and expansion of school facili-ties, they commonly feel the need to restrict and moni-tor use of such special rooms as computer labs, librar-ies, auditoriums and gyms with newly coated floors:

Now, I'm not going to open my computerlab up to them. There's a lot of money inthere. But, in general, classrooms areavailable to them.

Principal

In addition, at least one principal worried that the stu-dents also would not be able to observe two sets ofbehavioral standards for the same place:

When you have a nonprofessional teacher,there's a difference in how those childrenreact, behave and take care of the facility.The biggest thing I see is that it all doeswear on the facility...If kids sit on a deskthe next thing you know they'll be stand-ing on it. It's the same thing with run-ning in the hail. We have grandmasand older people in the school and if stu-dents are running around the hall andknock into someone it's a safety issue...Myconcern is that it might spill over into thedaytime.

Principal

Typically, in schools with sufficient space to share, weobserved that the availability of school space for theprogram reflects the degree of trust the principal has inthe coordinator and staff.

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Even after gaining the trust of principals, access tosome teachers' classrooms is limited or prohibited,particularly in schools where teachers' classrooms arepermanently assigned. In part, teachers object to hav-ing to straighten up early on a morning after the after-school program uses their classrooms; in part, theyworry about replacing supplies the program uses up,breaks or loses. The next section discusses severalstrategies school coordinators used to gain teachers'trust and deal with space challenges.

Strategies to Ameliorate Space Challenges

Sometimes teachers will say that they

need their classrooms cleaned because theafter-school program left them messy, andI'll go clean them right away...We'rereally responsive to that. If anything getsbroken, which also happens, we'll replace

it out of our budget. We won't ask ques-tions about it, we'll just replace it.There's also a need to validate teachers'emotions when things like this happen. Ican understand how they get upset aboutsome of these. things.

School Coordinator

In desperately overcrowded schools, programs had lim-ited capacity to address the challenges that the lack ofspace presented to them. However, even in thosecases, coordinators found solutions. In some cases,coordinators turned to outside organizations to getaccess to space adjacent to school buildings, such as asocial service office or a voluntary youth-serving orga-nization. In other cases partnering organizations, likethe YMCA, provided access to their facilities; in thosecases, however, transportation problems had to besolved.

Mutual Flexibility. More commonly, when space wasavailable, coordinators worked to develop trust withboth school staff and principals. Doing so requiresboth patience and significant amounts of the coordina-tor's time spent developing relationships with princi-pals and teachers. One program coordinator noted:"We use the classrooms of the teachers who arc sup-portive of the program, we avoid the others."

Over time, most programs that started with weak rela-tionships made progress in earning the confidence and


trust of the principals and some teachers, thus gainingaccess to space. School coordinators noted the impor-tance of communication, patience and flexibility:

To me the key to working with the schoolis to be flexible. Something that could bea problem if I didn't have an alternativeplan is space. If the room [scheduled forESS activities] is being used and I don'tfind out until the last minute, it can beannoying, but we find alternatives.

School Coordinator

Program Staff with School Experience. One of themost important things a program can do to engendertrust is to select staff, especially the coordinator, withexperience in the school. From our research to date, itappears that the general background of the candidatein, say, education or youth programmingdoes notaffect how well school coordinators are able to operatetheir individual after-school programs. More importantis the individual's relationships with relevant schoolpersonnel. For example, one school coordinator hadbeen a student teacher in the school in which she laterserved as the coordinator. She said that her previousrelationships with the principal and the teachers put herand the program in good standing with school staffand helped her gain access to facilities, teachers andeven youth. In another school, the program coordina-tor had worked part time in the school (and continuesto do so) coordinating community involvement. Herknowledge of the school's culture and relationshipswith the teachers, principals and custodians consider-ably cases the challenges of running the program.

After hiring three coordinators, one member of thecity's management team concluded:

As it turned out, it was important tohave the school principal selecting theprogram coordinator because the positioncan be filled by a "school-type" person.

Management Team Member

The benefit of having prior experience with the schoolis not restricted to the very early period of programimplementation. For example, at the end of the firstschool year, an assistant coordinator left and wasreplaced by someone who had worked in the schoolfor several years prior to joining the program. His


addition helped the program's reputation and access inthat school:

[My new assistant] has worked at [theschool] for three years, he knows the school

staff, the custodial staff. Everyone knowshim, he's got an in with everyone in thisschool. He has a charming personalitywherever he goes and talks up Beacons,people fall in love with hint and the Bea-cons...I think that's really going to help.[The principal] did give us a larger officethat we'll be moving into.

School Coordinator

The reaction of the principal to this hire illustrates howtargeted hires can allay the very common concerns ofprincipals, namely security and discipline:

One of the concerns that I had was thatthe people that were hired were not peoplethat understood the school and the work-ings of the school. [They] have now hired[a new assistant] and he understands theculture of the school. He's wonderful,that was a great addition to the Beacon.He worked as a security guard here. Ithink that's going to make a change inthe transition from school to Beacons...when the kids are in the building [evenafter school] they have to know what theschool's discipline is, and there has to be ahappy medium. Hiring [him] is probablyone of the best things that they've done.

Principal

From the school's perspective, the value of hiring atrusted school "insider" is that he or she knows (andpresumably will follow) the school rules and culturalnorms. From the program's perspective, having at leastone key staff member, preferably the program coordi-nator, who already has good relationships with theschool and its staff can greatly improve the program'saccess to space, communication with teachers, and evenits ability to recruit youth.

However, because principal turnover in the schoolswas quite high, trust levels did not always increaseover time. When a new principal came into a school,program staff had to build new relationships and

sometimes lost access they had once enjoyed. Buildingrelationships with a new principal was a slow processbecause, in his or her first year, the principal oftenconcentrated on core school-day tasks, giving little timeto the after-school program. Building trust shouldthus be seen by coordinators as an ongoing processwhose salience increases when programs begin or staffturn over.

We observed modest differences across the four modelsin the levels of trust between school staff and programstaff. The WEPIC and Community Schools programs,in general, reported that relationships with principalsare positive. More variation exists across the largernumber of Bridges and Beacon schools, with trust highin some but low in others. The difference seems to berelated to the degree to which principals are integral tothe program. High integration is inherent in the Com-munity Schools model, but not in the other models,where it is strongly encouraged, but not mandated. InBridges and Beacons, however, we did see examples ofhigh trust between principals and program staff in allcases the principals were very involved in the programsand saw program activities as crucial supports for theiryouth.

Permanent Program SpaceIn the first year of operation, program space was tran-sient. Most activities were shifted from room to room.In light of this turbulence, some programs covetedinformal ownership of a space. Having permanentspace, of course gives stability to the program, as wellas a greater sense of belonging and membership to theyouth. In a group interview, several program coordi-nators working in the same city discussed the merits of"owning" a classroom:

Coordinator I: We have a serious spaceproblem. We didn't have a meetingroom [for ESS students]. We usedthe cafeteria. Just this summer we gotour own room and it's been really nicebecause we can hang things on thewalls and they stay there. We can putup rules [that the students decided on]and they stay. It's made a big differ-ence with the kids. But in the fall we'lllose the room.

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Coordinator 2: The kids feel a sense ofownership [when they have their ownroom].

Coordinator 3: Yeah, they buildrcsponsibility...and there are no com-plaints if we used all the glue or usedall the paint. We've gotten a goodresponse from kids. They really likehaving our own room with our pic-tures up on the walls and our rules.With our own space there's a strongerclub feel.

To date, few programs have gained unrestricted accessto school space. These rare cases occurred during thesummer when schools were out of session and fewerschool staff members were on hand to monitor facilityuse. At the end of the first year of implementation, itseems that while most ESS programs are becomingincreasingly welcomed guests in their schools, theycontinue to seek the equal membership, sense ofbelonging and informal ownership that strengthenprogress toward sustainability.

Custodial Maintenance of School SpaceAll the ESS school staff we spoke with were stronglyaware of their reliance on custodiansthe keepers ofthe keys. One school coordinator identified custodialstaff as equal to principals as "the folks who can makeand break us." In some cases, failure to obtain full sup-port has meant that programs were temporarily shutdown in three or four schools:

A year ago [one of the programs] wasshut down... The custodial director didn'twant anyone in there if a janitor was noton duty. [The concern is that] they are inthe school without the custodial staff onduty. We are responsible for what goes onin our facility. We risk liabilitylike I* fa kid slipped on the floor and got hurtbecause the snow wasn't removed due tothe lack of a custodian.

School District Superintendent


I love the custodians. The only problem isthat we're on their schedule. [The day-time custodian] leaves at 2:00p.m. and ifhis replacement doesn't come in after himthen we have to get out.

School Coordinator

However, the issue of custodians is not just aboutneeding to build good relationships. The real need forcleaning and maintaining shared school space affects itsavailability. The ESS programs are no exception andfew have been able to adequately address it over theirfirst year of operations. The longer -term issue of sus-taining facility infrastructure is a problem confrontingall schools that extend their hours beyond the tradi-tional six- to eight -hour day, and is thus an issue thatthe oversight teams must address.

The problems are primarily ones of money and logis-tics. If the program uses space not in use every day, oruses it for more hours, the schools face additionalcleaning demands. In addition, since the programsoperate outside of normal school hours, the schedule ofcleaning must change, which often has cost implica-tions. Each ESS collaborative has to determine howthese costs will be shared. Second, in trying to mini-mize these extra costs, school coordinators often curtailactivities more than they want to or do not offer adultactivities in the evening when more adults and parentscan attend (rooms must be empty for cleaning duringthe hours that custodians normally work). Lastly,issues of liability and compliance with custodial unionrules are entwined with these practical concerns.

The scheduling of room cleanings even more thanaccess to space, surfaced as the most pressing issue forprograms. School custodians have set work schedulesthat enable them to clean all the needed school spacesin their allocated time, assuming most of them areempty at the close of the regular school day. Thepresence of ESS after- school programs means thatclassrooms are not empty at their usual time. Thuscustodians have to juggle their schedules and oftenhave less time to clean. Similarly, in the summers,custodians traditionally rely on having a block of time


when school is out of session to conduct a comprehen-sive cleaning of classroom spaces. The presence of asummer program means that less of this type of main-tenance takes place with the given level of resources.

One principal described his concerns about cleaning theschool:

Custodians essentially lose a month ofcleaning time. They can't get in there tostrip the rooms, clean the walls and do thecarpeting. We lack the people power tohave the school ready in the fall the way itshould be...I think it may require morepersonnel. We're in a crunch and theytell us to do more with less but there'll bea point when that doesn't work.

The superintendent of the same school district rein-forced these concerns:

I hear that the usage of the schools isextensive enough that we don't have thecustodial structure to keep up with thedemand. When we reach the point thatwe can't keep up with it, and we mayreach this point, what we will have to dealwith is the definition of the level of service

custodians can provide... Our people areused to cleanliness and we can't sustainthat [with usage so high] . So we may

have to go to a different level of upkeep

than is currently expected from custodi-ans. This will affect the program.

A few of the school coordinators we talked to did notfully understand the problem. One told us that if youbreak down the damage and extra maintenance doneby hour-of-use, you would see that wear and tear occurat a normal rate. The problem, however, is thatresource-strapped school districts have no extra moneyfor maintenance.

Programs deal with increased cleaning demands andscheduling conflicts in similar ways. Often theyattempt to stretch resources, having the custodiansclean more in the same number of hours. At oneschool, custodial staff stay for an additional unpaid

hour to support the needs of the ESS program. ManyESS staff also informally take on cleaning responsibili-ties, some more willingly than others. Some schoolcoordinators adopt custodial work as a part of theirresponsibilities, as in the case of the coordinator whodropped everything if a teacher complained about amess left in the classroom; others take on these dutiesmore reluctantly. One coordinator explained:

I would like to see us not having to kow-tow to the engineering staff. We're veryaware that our good relationship couldchange. For instance, the evening janitordecided that he would vacuum the bigmedia center before the kids come in forthe after-school program, instead of after.Now our coordinator or some kids will

help us vacuum.School Coordinator

Both of these strategics, which hold down cost in theshort term, push some programs into the uncomfort-able position of overlooking union rules and riskingliability for incidents that occur on a custodian's shiftbut not necessarily under his or her supervision.Agency partners and activity providers described someof these situations:

We were creating scuff marks, so we weremopping the gym floor once a week. Thenthe engineers came and told me we werebreaking union ruleswe're not supposedto pick up a broom.

School Coordinator

There's something that says if thereare more than 50 kids in the building,there have to be two engineers. We'vestretched the rules to avoid paying over-time. In the bigger picture I don't havethe money for it...but I do think it needsto be considered.

School Coordinator

Rules related to liability vary from city and, perhapsmore germane, stringency about upholding these rulesfluctuates from district to district. Some programs arewilling to bend, stretch and overlook certain restric-tions, while others demand full compliance.

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Locating funds to cover the costs of added custodialsupport is consistently challenging. In the early stagesof planning, custodial maintenance was designed to bean in-kind contribution of the school, but no costsbeyond what the school traditionally spent were fore-seen. In approximately half the schools, no funds areallocated from the ESS budget for services. In theother half, programs spend approximately $8,000 tocover Saturday or evening hours. One of the few prin-cipals who has solved the custodial problem spent a fullyear lobbying her district to switch a custodian fromdaytime to evening hours. The switch was successfuland resulted in the school staying open to offer adultevening classes, but it required an additional $7,000 insalary for the night custodian.

Resolutions of these complexities of school mainte-nance remain unresolved in almost all cases. In movingtoward program sustainability, it lingers as a criticalconcern for many programs and principals.

TransportationLike the issues of school space and custodial support,transportation is a critical factor that influences pro-gram structure and capacity. In particular, it affects thecost of the program, who participates and the hours ofyouth programming.

Well over half the programs were pressed to settle withserving the youth who could make it to and from theirprograms using available options.

The Legacy of School BusingPrograms operating in schools where a majority ofyouth live within safe walking distance are at a consid-erable advantage. Yet the nature of urban schoolsmakes the likelihood of this rarethe history of schoolbusing laws reveals why.

In the 1970s, state-mandated busing was introduced asa promising remedy to cases of apartheid in Americaneducation. Students of color, once isolated in neigh-borhood public schools, boarded buses and traveledacross cities to attend predominately white schools.While, in some cities, busing continues to serve as animportant response to segregation, in others its needis becoming obsolete. Ongoing demographic shiftsresulting from white flight and increasing urban minor-ity populations mean that nonwhite students constitutea growing majority in urban American schools. As aresult, policies on busing are being reconsidered. For


example, in Boston, where the nonwhite population inpublic schools has reached 80 percent, busing will beeliminated in six years.

Yet regardless of the city, the negative legacy of busingremains. The number of neighborhood schools havediminished and fewer youth walk. The permanence ofschool structures only feeds these difficulties by creat-ing a mismatch between heavily youth populatedneighborhoods and schools. School buildings wereoriginally built in locations to serve their surroundingneighborhoods, but as many neighborhood popula-tions age or shift, school -aged populations have dimin-ished. Given the prohibitive costs of building schoolsin new or growing neighborhoods with high numbersof youth, students are bused out to old buildings.

In four of the 10 research cities, students who wantto attend ESS programs but normally rely on schoolbusing require alternative means of transportation toparticipate in the extended hours of the program.Although three of the cities have late buses available atthe middle or high school level, using the late buscsset up primarily for activities such as extra curricularsportsrequires that the ESS program end before thelate bus leaves. In addition, all the programs strugglewith providing adequate transportation for off -siteactivities (such as swimming or hiking) and field trips.

They either have to limit the number of trips or notoffer a desired activity at all. Additionally, staff, volun-teers and parents who live a moderate distance fromthe school are limited in the degree to which they canparticipate in programs if they lack ready and afford-able modes of transportation.

CostThe main reason transportation surfaced as such a para-mount concern is cost. Paying for additional busing isexpensive and, in almost all cases, sufficient fundingwas not allotted to this service during the planningstages. In only one case was availability of transporta-tion considered in the school selection process. In therest of the programs, it emerged as a growing concernfor which programs are largely underpreparcd:

I don't think we have a task force or afocused piece on transportation, it's moreas we're stumbling into it [that we thinkabout it] .

School Coordinator


Was transportation discussed in plan-ning? Not enough. There was a sensethat you would have kids within walkingdistance.

Planning Committee Member

The added requirements and costs of transportation areextensive. One program estimated the real costs oftransportation to be three times what was originallybudgeted. Another program calculated the costs ofafter-school busing to be $50,000 for the school yearand $100 a day during the summer. Such dauntingexpenses contributed to one principal's proposal to themanagement team that the school make the ESS pro-gram a mandatory part of the school day, so the schooldistrict would have to pay for busing. This proposalwas not accepted.] Coordinators expressed frustrationat how unwieldy the problem is:

If you want to keep people after school

longer and later you have to consider howthey're going to get home. If there isn'tany money to get people home, are we justspinning our wheels? It's not just a mat-ter of time, it's a dollar a trip on the[public] buses. Some kids don't have $20a month.

School Coordinator

The Public Transportation OptionNumerous programs have considered using publictransportation, but to our knowledge, none of the ESSschools have gone this route. The expense would beless formidable, but as mentioned earlier, it would stillinvolve additional cost. However, the main reason, todate, that public transportation has not been used isthat programs have raised concerns about the safetyand accessibility of public transit routes, particularly forelementary school students.

ConsequencesThe consequences of inadequate transportation for ESSparticipants arc substantial. Youth who live beyondwalking distance from the school and lack adults whocan pick them up simply can not participate in the pro-grams. In cities like Minneapolis, where 90 to 95 per-cent of the student population relies on busing, manyyouth face the possibility of being left out. Yet the

situation seems equally problematic in programs likeSavannah's, where 25 percent of the students rely onbusing. Also, even in schools where students normallywalk, early darkness in the winter may mean that stu-dents cannot stay after school. School coordinatorsand program partners consistently highlighted theirconcerns:

It's a major problem. Lots of kids say theycan't participate 'cause no one can pickthem up.

School Coordinator

We have to limit the program to 150[students] a day because of transporta-tion. We have only so many buses.

School Coordinator

We didn't offer transportation in theschool year and there were kids we missed.

I know there are kids who participatedlast summer but not during school...theylive far away. And I hear from parentsthat it's a challenge getting kids here.

School Coordinator

ESS coordinators and providers also lament the lack oftransportation because students who require aftcr-hours busing are frequently those who could most ben-efit from added support; their parents work eveningshifts and can neither arrange a pick up nor help withschool work at home. We speculate that these are alsofrequently children of lower-income and single-parentfamilies.

Program cutbacks are another consequence of inade-quate transportation. At one program summer activi-ties began a week late because transportation was notyet available. For all cities except one, the possibility offield trips and off -site activities are curtailed becausefunds for such excursions are limited. We speculatethat some programs may wholly discount the possibil-ity of offering before-school programming becausecosts for early busing are prohibitive. Locating prop-erly licensed drivers and securing insurance for vehiclesarc added challengesand all of these challengesgrow as programs expand and more youth want toparticipate.

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SolutionsThe immediacy of the transportation issue has pressedprograms to develop solutions. Some strategies aretemporary, while others may be sustainable in the longterm. In the best of circumstances, school districts areable to offer monetary or in-kind support for late bus-ing. In Jacksonville, the school district already had latebusing in operation for other school activities, whichthey could then extend to ESS youth. In Boston, theprincipal lobbied the district for a year to provide latebusing; it finally agreed, with the stipulation that busesleave the school before 5:00pm. In Minneapolis, theESS summer program strategically dovetailed withsummer school classes so that summer school studentswho stayed for ESS would return home on schooldistrict- funded buses. Through this arrangement, theMinneapolis summer program is able to serve a largegroup of youth, but it has a major drawback: studentsnot enrolled in summer school are unable to participatein ESS activities.

While some school districts contribute sizable amountsof support for transportation, others do not. Eitherbudgets are stretched and money is unavailable, orthere are restrictions on how transit money may bespent. For example, in Missoula, the school districtgrants transportation funding only to academic pro-gramsESS is considered non academic. In these andother cases, programs turn to community partners fortransportation support. An ESS school in Minneapolisdeveloped a partnership with the Community Educa-tion program whereby they split the costs for late bus-ing during the school year. A school in Missoula col-laborates with the local Head Start program to sharebusing. Other programs capitalize on their relation-ships with the YMCA or a partnering university to gainthe occasional use of vans for off -site trips. Coordina-tors of the Savannah ESS program sought the supportof a local car dealership, which sold them a van at cost.

Other solutions seem more like patchwork. At pro-grams in Central Falls and Missoula, some staff usetheir own vehicles to transport youth. One programapplies ESS funds to transportation costs but thus lim-its funds available for programming.

Within this context, the transportation challenges forESS programs fester. Without secured ways to trans-port bus-dependent youth to and from activities,

4


before-school, after-school, weekend and summer pro-grams become less viable and ultimately discriminatory.And as programs continue to work toward creativesolutions to these transportation difficulties, the evi-dence suggests that long -term solutions rest in thecapacity of cities and school districts to shoulder finan-cial responsibility for Extended-Service programs.

Adding Coordination Staff to AddressLogistical ChallengesThe challenges we have discussed in this chapter relateto the use of the physical facility and the transportationneeds of students. In addition to being problems inand of themselves, they add substantially to the schoolcoordinators' workload, thereby increasing the coordi-nators' roles and responsibilities. Along with identify-ing, creating, staffing and scheduling activities, super-vising providers and ensuring that the programs arerunning smoothly, the coordinators also have to focuson custodial issues (even going so far as to do somecleaning themselves) and transportation. In reality,school coordinators spend far more time fulfillingtheir responsibilities than anyone had expected priorto implementation. This section discusses the plansthat cities made to staff their programs and thechanges they made to those plans as implementationgot under way.

Planned Staffing Patterns and ChallengesAt the beginning of implementation, many cities beganrunning two to three hours of after school program-ming. This schedule implied that the school coordina-tor would be providing or managing activities approxi-mately 15 hours a week. If coordinators were hiredhalf -time, 20 to 25 hours a week, they would have 5to 10 additional hours a week for communication andplanning. Among the intensive research programs,originally one of the Community Schools, one of theBeacons programs (with four schools), and two of thethree Bridges to Success schools (for a total of eightschools) decided to employ half-time coordinators. Inthe remaining Bridges city, there are half-time coordi-nators in two of the five schools. When more resourceswere available, the coordinator's time was often supple-mented with an assistant (in four Bridges schools).However, almost immediately, it was recognized thatit is extremely difficult to start an after-school programand run it well with a half-time coordinator. Planningtime is insufficient, as is the time necessary to recruitvolunteers.


Project directors who oversee schools with half-timecoordinators came to see that the quality of program-ming suffered:

It's also been difficult because in the orig-inal grant the [school] coordinators wereplanned to work part time. It's unrealis-tic to have one part-time staff person with200 kids.

Project Director

Project directors also told us that coordinator burnoutand turnover arc of much greater concern when thesefront-line workers are half time. When we talked to thehalf-time coordinators, most of them were actuallyworking closer to full time, although they were notgetting paid for it. These are individuals who are pas-sionate about their jobs, but programs lose these dedi-cated staff when they leave for full-time jobs.

In response to the challenge of keeping coordinatorsand providing a coherent program, some programshave reallocated resources to increase the coordinator'shours:

If we really wanted to integrate day andafter school into a real extended-serviceschool, we need a [school] coordinator who

knows the teachers. So we...revisited thejob description [to] hire someone full timeand [who was a] certified teacher to getthe input of the day teachers...After acouple of months of testing, we'll revisitthe external coordinator issue.

Principal

To pay for a full-time school coordinator, this programdecided not to hire a half-time person to do fundraisingand make links with external organizations, but ratherto shift these funds to the school coordinator. Themanagement team worried about not having someoneto fundraisc, so they revisited their decision throughoutthe year, hoping that as the program matured theywould be able to reduce the school coordinator's hours.However, they found they needed a school coordinatorfull time through the entire first year.

Adding Time or StaffOther cities quickly tried to develop other sources offunding by writing grants or reallocating resources. Asa result, by the beginning of the second year, 7 of the

13 half-time positions were made full time. In addi-tion, in cities which retained part-time coordinators,decision-makers reported that they were working toincrease the school coordinator's time.

In the Community Schools and Beacons cities, whichplanned to have full-time coordinators from the begin-ning, school coordinators noted that even their full-time hours are very long and insufficient for theamount of work to be done:

My schedule? from 8:00a.m. to 9:00p.m.It's supposed to be 40 per week...with meleaving two hours before the Beaconscloses. But it's hard to leave. The kidshave to have adult supervision, have tohave transportation. My morning istaken up with meetings or officework...meeting at [the local intermedi-ary) for coordinators meetings, a man-agement meeting at [the lead agency],youth component meetings with principalson a regular basis, meeting with my staffIgo to a lot of community thingslikeCBO monthly meetings, or with thehospital.

School Coordinator

The biggest challenge to operating theprogram? For me, it's the time. In anideal world I would like to have more timeto do things. Right now, it's just kind ofputting out fires.

School Coordinator

In response, most of the Beacon Schools are gravitatingtoward an arrangement in which there is a full-timeschool coordinator and a full- or half-time assistant.Once the assistant is trained and reliable, the coordina-tor and the assistant can stagger their hours to coverthe entire day without putting in too many extra hours:

We're both full time...We are open WI8:00p.m. on Monday through Thursday.So we switch off [He] comes in in themorning and leaves at 5:00p.m.. I'llcome in at noon and leave at 9:00p.m..

School Coordinator

44

Coordination at the schools is therefore a much biggerjob than many of the planning team members imaginedas they were setting up their programs. Along withother needs for resourcescustodial support, buildingmaintenance and transportationgetting the programson the ground proved more difficult and costly thanexpected.

SurnrinaryThe programming challenges faced during implementa-tion have three major commonalities: they were formi-dable, they were typically unanticipated by the localplayers during the planning stages, and they occurredwith consistency across programs, regardless of modeltype. Each of the 10 intensive research programs facedat least one if not all four of the main challenges. Theyinclude gaining access to programming space, arrang-ing for the maintenance of that space, providing trans-portation to and from programs for participants, andensuring sufficient staff support to run the demandingprograms.

These issues readily rose to the top of programs' agen-das and pressed programs to work in committed andcreative ways to develop solutions. In many cases nur-turing relationships with key school personnel (princi-pals, teachers and custodians) was at the heart of gain-ing access to school space. Our data show that whileschools and CBO staff typically shared a similar set ofgoals for ESS programs, the level of trust at whichschools first held ESS programs was less consistent.Program staff often recognized the need to be patientin developing their relationships with school staff andto explore the use of alternative facilities. Some pro-grams also discovered that involving school principalsin the hiring of ESS school coordinators and choosingstaff who were already known by the school smoothedcommunication issues and facilitated access to schoolspace. In most cases access to school space increasedover time, as schools grew more comfortable with theprograms and program staff. Yet in school districtsburdened by over-crowding, space remains a scarcecommodity.

The challenge of ensuring the maintenance of schoolspace was another issue eased by the careful develop-ment of relationships with school staff, particularly cus-todians and principals who might serve as intermediar-ies. In the day-to-day operation of programs, the mainconcern is in coordinating the ESS use of space with


custodians' cleaning schedules. But in the larger con-text of implementing ESS programs, the most pressingissue is ensuring that schools can sustain the increasedwear and tear on their facilities' infrastructures result-ing from the additional hours of use. As programs andschools faced the challenge of locating additional fundsto cover the costs of custodians' longer work days, theyreadily recognized that meeting maintenance needs iscentral to sustaining programs.

The third challenge, transportation, was perhaps themost formidable because its remedy required the mostextra funding and its consequence was that someyouth, often the most needy, simply could not partici-pate in ESS activities.

Programs have learned that addressing these and otherchallenges involved in implementation requires largerthan anticipated investments of time from all initiativepartners and, in particular, school coordinators. Inresponse, some programs made the decision to switchpart time coordinator positions to full timeagain,resulting in an increased and critical program expense.

The relational and financial natures of the challengesmade resolutions slow, time-consuming and, in themost difficult of cases, not doable by program staffalone. As programs continue to mature, we anticipatethat they will develop creative solutions to the issues athand. Yet, we also foresee that without added financialsupport to mediate challenges like transportation, cus-todial support and full staffing, achieving sustainabilityis at risk.

46

Building Partnerships in the Planning Period 45

VD. Building Partnerships in thePlanning Period

This chapter describes the experiences of the planningteams as they got under way. The planning period wasa time of both great enthusiasm and struggle. Citieswere excited by the opportunity to create comprehen-sive programs, but considerable relationship buildingneeded to be done to get a range of institutions to thetable. In particular, negotiating with school districtsproved challenging in some cities. To investigate thefactors that facilitate building partnerships, we inter-viewed many of the key players to get their perspectiveon the planning process.

From these interviews, we address the followingquestions:

Who joined the planning teams and whatmotivated their involvement?Does initial motivation relate to whetherpeople stay?How did the cities forge successful partner-ships with school districts?Does previous experience with collaborativeefforts ease planning?What kinds of technical assistance proved use-ful to cities during their planning period?

Why CollaborateIn the past 10 years, philanthropic and community-building institutions have begun urging nonprofit andpublic social service agencies to collaborate. At a timewhen the ways that schools, social service institutionsand families have traditionally prepared youth for theireconomic and civic futures appear to be inadequate,the established boundaries and functions of such insti-tutions are shifting as new responsibilities are addedor old ones curtailed. Schools find themselves respon-sible for imparting more cultural knowledge to largergroups of students. Due to shifts in the labor market,in which more mothers of young children are workingfor longer hours, families have less time to take on theroles of transmitting culture, knowledge and normsto their children. These shifts have resulted in a long-term debate about how to fulfill our responsibilitiesto youth.

Collaborative efforts also come at a period when Amer-icans have decided to funnel relatively fewer resourcesto public social services, forcing those who provide andfund such services to think about ways to conserve orstretch available funds. At the same time, researchers

46

and advocates of child development have succeeded increating a public understanding of the complex, inter-dependent nature of child and adolescent development.As a result of all these forces, efforts have been made toweave together different kinds of services to provideadequate supports for youth.

Broad social trends and discourse have therefore cre-ated an environment in which increased collaborationmay be a useful strategy for delivering services. In thisclimate, policymakers, funders and practitioners haveidentified specific goals they hope to achieve throughincreased collaboration.

First, providers and funders hope to avoid serviceduplication and service gaps, especially when fundingfor social programs is limited. Although some duplica-tion may be desirable to ensure that the target popula-tions have adequate access to services, too much maycause philanthropic and public funds to be divertedfrom necessary but not currently fashionable services,while heavily funded services may be undersubscribed.

A second motivation is the desire to draw on theresources of existing institutions for new social pro-grams or initiatives. Getting new social programsstarted is an arduous and time-consuming process,especially if the programs are complex and requireexpertise and resources that may be more plentiful ininstitutions other than those that initiate the programs.While it is possible for institutions to build expertise innew areas, it may be easier to enlist the support of insti-tutions that already have expertise. Partnerships thusbecome a way of increasing access to resources.

Third, many collaborative efforts assume that sustain-ing the work of initiatives beyond the initial fundingperiod will be more successful if multiple institutionsare involved. This is particularly important when phil-anthropic funds or nonrenewable public funds arebeing used. Unless initiatives and programs identifynew ways to fund their work, the chances are good thatthe efforts will cease shortly after the funding periodends. Partnerships may increase access to financialresources during and after the initial grant period, sincedifferent institutions have access to different sources offinancial support.

Related to the work of sustaining programs, partner-ship building is also perceived as a way to publicize

48


new social programs, thus attracting new resources.When partners come to the table to discuss multi-dimensional and complex initiatives over a period oftime, they are better prepared to act as "carriers" ofimportant information.

All these factors contributed to the development ofcollaborations in the Extended-Service Schools Initia-tive. The request for proposals sent out by the modelsfor implementation grants listed six selection criteria,three of which concerned the need for cooperation andcollaboration among groups of people and agencies.They were:

Evidence of sustainability. Ideally, the pro-posed program will have the potential to dra-matically increase the use of facilities in schoolbuildings and existing resources our emphasis]for low-income young people in a sustainableway.

Evidence of community involvement. Pro-grams and decision-making bodies should berepresentative [of] every level of the commu-nity they serve.

Commitment of participating schools tosupporting the Adaptation project as dem-onstrated by the interest of teachers and thewillingness of administrators to support anextended-service school consistent with the pro-jects' goals.

These criteria were sufficiently general to cover all themodels, while emphasizing the importance of partner-ships in implementing the local ESS initiative and find-ing resources to sustain it over time.

Who Came to the Table and Why?Prior to providing funds for implementing ESS, citiesreceived planning grants. Fund staff believed thatprogram implementation would be stronger if sitestook six to nine months to convene potential partnersand make initial implementation decisions. In addi-tion, the design of ESS emphasizes the creation of col-laborations among providers, funders, schools and gov-ernment agencies as a way of creating multifaceted andsustainable after-school programs. Thus, the planningperiod was a time to create and strengthen links andpartnerships.


As many researchers and practitioners have found overthe past 15 years, interinstitutional collaboration is achallenging and time- consuming process that may befraught with tension. Despite the inherent challenges,a number of urban policymakers and executives ofinstitutions that provide services continue to initiateand maintain such efforts because the potential benefitsoutweigh the considerable challenges.

The earliest challenge consists of finding institutionalpartners willing to dedicate administrative or executivestaff time to plan an initiative and dedicate resourcesto implementing it. Cities convened high-level execu-tives from governmental agencies, community-basedorganizations and funders to begin planning. Sincemuch of the programming was to take place in theschools, most sites also deemed it necessary to inviteschool personneleither school district administratorsor principals or bothto the planning team. None-theless, the specific mix of planning team members ineach communityand more importantly, the keydecision-makers for ESS within that mixvariedacross cities.

Partners had a number of motivations for coming tothe table. A few, especially those who were instrumen-tal in introducing the initiative to their cities, camewith visions of increased or better integratedschool/community partnerships:

Way back, I started out with a first gradeclass; I thought I would be able to savethese kids,...but I didn't know where tostart...I didn't have enough resources andI didn't know what to do. Igot a mas-ter's degree in Special Education; butafter all of that, I knew I couldn't do itall myself. It was a community responsi-bility and the school had to teach the kids.

Principal

While this principal was driven by a belief that it isnecessary to fulfill youth's physical and emotionalneeds as well as their educational needs, other schooldistrict personnel saw ESS as a way of enhancing theeducational mission of the school in the context ofafter-school programs:

It's needed, it was also a great opportu-nity to change our philosophy of after-

school programming... [Before,] manyprograms that ran in the schools ranindependent of the school improvementteam. Many programs did not have adirect link to the schools or the district'sstrategic plan. Thirdly, most importantlyfrom the principals' point of view, theschools were bursting at the seams withpeople doing things after school that weregood, but nobody was tracking it. Therewas no central location for knowledge ofwhat was happening in their school.

School District Administrator

Partners from CBOs hoped to expand the kind ofyouth development programming they already offeredby drawing on the physical or human resources of theschools. American public schools are underutilizedpublic resources, often open for only six or seven hoursa day in communities that may lack the physicalresources in which to provide youth programs. Thus,school buildings were perceived by community-basedorganizations as potential resources:

We don't want to build buildings, wewant to be collaborators. Two of our threecity locations are in city buildings; wehave the wherewithal to do capital fund-raising, but we wanted to collaboratemore, be more accessible.Youth-Serving Organization Administrator

But, as discussed in Chapter V, getting access toschools is often difficult. Some ESS partners saw theinitiative as a way of approaching the schools:

49

We were looking at expanding intoschools anyway, and were wonderinghow to approach the schools, and then thiscame along. Getting into the school hasnot always been easy, I heard from other[affiliates] that have tried, and when Itold my colleagues about how easy it was

for us to get in via this project (i.e., theESS Adaptation Initiative), they said,"you are lucky to have such a principaland school superintendent that are sosupportive."Youth-Serving Organization Administrator

48

Still others began their collaborative work simplybecause their organization was invited, and they wereappropriately placed to participate. Such people usu-ally were administrators or executives in key institu-tions, such as large youth-serving organizations andpublic institutions that may provide funding and cru-cial support:

I know about it from our executive who isconnected in the city. She was invited tobecome involved in the Beacons by theYouth Coordinating Board about twoyears ago. We both started [going] tosome of the meetings with all these enti-ties to talk about what was going on. [Myexecutive director] asked me to be part ofthat because it was a youth developmentinitiative.Youth-Serving Organization Administrator

They wanted a representative from themayor's office and I do a lot of coordina-tion of youth activities for the city.

Mayor's Office Staff Member

Thus, there were a variety of interrelated motivationsfor getting involved in the initiative. No single motiva-tion dominated. Of 34 planning team members inter-viewed, 10 reported that they came to the table becausethey hoped to extend their ongoing work with youththrough a school/community collaboration. Nine saidthey saw the potential for resourcesboth in terms ofbuilding space and funding for programs. And another10 came because they were invited."

Differences in motivation among planning team mem-bers appeared to correlate with the different institu-tions. Not surprisingly, administrators from the localUnited Ways, other local fundcrs and large CBOs, whooften generated initial local interest in the initiative,were interested in the initiative because it extends thework they are already doing. School district adminis-trators were much more likely to report that they camebecause they saw the possibility of getting moreresources into the schools.

Two or more years into the initiative, why peoplefirst got involved appears not to predict future involve-ment. Some of those who went on to become keyimplementation partners originally came to the table


because they thought resources for their existing pro-grams would be available. Others who came lookingfor resources did not receive as much as they hadexpected, and dropped out over time. Others whowere initially wary remained committed. Whatappeared to be far more important than the initialmotivation was what happened after people got tothe table.

What Facilitated or Impeded EarlyCollaborations with Schools?The collaborations faced a number of challenges in sta-bilizing the membership of the collaborative groupsand moving forward with planning. The most difficultcollaboration to forge among planning team membersproved to be that between CBOs and school districts.Before concrete decisions about the scope and sub-stance of the local initiative could be made, a numberof issues relating to the dynamics of the collaborationhad to be addressed. As the city collaboratives beganto meet, the question of who would make decisionsand control resources became a pressing issue.

In 6 of the 10 cities visited, the initiative planned toimplement the programs in more than one school inthe local school district. This was largely a model dif-ference: both the Beacons and the Bridges to Successmodels involve multiple schools in one city, whereasthe Community Schools model calls for partnershipwith a single school. In theory, the WEPIC modelcould include multiple schools, but in ESS only oneschool per city was involved in the local WEPICadaptations.

The number of schools involved in a local collaborationwas an important factor in determining the extent towhich the school district administration became activein initiative planning. In sites in which a single schoolwas involved (e.g., the Community Schools and someWEPIC sites), the partnership with the school wasmore likely to involve local school personnel, such asthe principal and key teachers. In contrast, in cities inwhich multiple schools were involved, the school dis-trict administration became a crucial partner during theplanning phase.

The challenges to introducing school district personnelto the initiative and nurturing their enthusiasm andsupport for the initiative varied across cities. In some


Table 6.1Motivation for Getting Involved in the ESS Adaptation Planning Process

Role InvitedAccess toResources

ESS ExtendsCurrent Work Other

School personnel

CBO or governmentagency personnel

5

5

7

2

1

9

1

3

cities, building relationships with the local school dis-trict proved particularly difficult:

Initially, we were asking, "How can weknow it will be a quality program if wedon't supervise?" Some of our relation-ships with those who were involved were

not positive...A lot of organizationsviewed the school district as a riskypartner]as controlling, as pulling rankand vetoing decisions. There were verytense conversations.

School District Administrator

Our past relationship with the school dis-trict was one of intolerance and hate. Weare fairly experienced at collaboration butit's a tricky relationship with the schools.The schools felt attacked by us because we

published the negative outcomes in theschools [in an evaluation of a prior initia-tive].

Fiscal Agency Staff

As it happens, of the three cities with problematic rela-tionships with school districts, all had chosen to adaptthe Beacons model. This pattern could have occurredfor a variety of reasons. It could be a chance outcome.It could be that the cities' past tensions with schooldistricts attracted them to the Beacons model. Or, itcould be that something about the Beacons model itselfaffects the relationships.

It is impossible to determine the degree to which eachreason contributed to the experiences we observed.Cities with tense prior relationships may have chosenthe Beacons because it is one model in which the

school district does not have to be a key player. Whilepeople involved in the Beacons readily prefer the sup-port and engagement of the schools and recognize thatsuch support strengthens program implementation,they remain prepared to enter schools even whenstrong support is not available. The assumption is thatsuccessful implementation will create productiveschool /CBO relationships. Previous tensions betweenthe CBOs and the school districts also could have beenaggravated by the model's reliance on CBOs to manageprograms at the schools.

Whatever the reasons for the tensions, all three citiesfound effective solutions to their problems and movedforward. They therefore provide good examples ofadaptations that permit the models to adjust to localconditions. Planning team members engaged in aseries of extensiveand ultimately successfulnegotiations with school districts and CBOs. In onecity, the school board expressed strong concern thatthe ESS Adaptation would bring health clinics thatmight provide reproductive health services (includingbirth control) into the schools. The school board'sconcern threatened the initiative. The planning teamassured the board that no health clinics would bestarted in the Beacon Centers, thereby allowing theinitiative to move forward.

In a second city, the school district expressed concernthat the CBOs chosen as lead agencies might not workcooperatively with and be accountable to the schools.This concern led to an agreement that the school dis-trict would have veto power over any CBO that appliedto become a Beacon Center lead agency.

In the third city, negotiations centered around whowould be the lead agency for the Beacon Centers. The

5'A_

50

Department of Community Education, which is part ofthe school district, initially wanted to help manage theeffort, believing that it was already providing after-school youth development services. The CBOsinvolved in the effort, however, indicated that theybelieved that what Community Education does differsfrom the work of a Beacon Center, which has anexplicit youth development focus that CommunityEducation does not.' One proposal suggested by theplanning team that would have given Community Edu-cation a major role in the management of the BeaconsAdaptation was that everyone would plan and managethe initiative together:

The theory of the group, not mine, wasthat, "sure, this money is supposed to go tocommunity-based organizations, but weought to just put the money in there andhave everybody work equally and everyone

plan and manage this together."Planning Tcam Member from CBO

This plan, however, was not agreeable to a key memberof the planning team, who referred the group to theoriginal New York model. Ultimately, the groupfound an acceptable compromise and agreed that theoverall initiative would be managed by a communitybased-organization. The group also decided that, atthe school level, three Beacon Centers would be man-aged by community-based organizations, and twoothers would be funded and managed primarily byCommunity Education. The grant guidelines pre-vented substantial Wallace-Readers' Digest Funds fromgoing to the two Community Education schools,although both were included in all local Beacons activi-ties: retreats, training and shared planning sessions.The compromise ensured that the school districtinthe form of Community Educationwas an activepartner in the initiative.

Each negotiation led to modifications in the Beaconsmodel. One city allows the school district to have vetopower over proposed CBOs the least significantchange since it does not alter the implementation ofthe program once a CBO is selected. The modificationin the second city limits the kinds of health services thatcan be provided in the schools. The modificationinvolving Community Education potentially has themost far reaching consequences because it lays thegroundwork for a change in how Community Educa-tion approaches its work. One stakeholder suggestedthat Community Education might benefit from what


he saw as the holistic approach the Beacons modeltakes to youth and communities. Instead of providingdiscrete programs as it had traditionally done, this per-son perceived that Community Education schoolsmight move toward a menu of interrelated programs inthe after-school and evening hours. Other stakeholderssuggested that the move could potentially enhanceCommunity Education's youth development focus.Should either of those two things happen, CommunityEducation could be in a position to expand Beaconsprogramming throughout the school system.

In contrast to the Beacons Adaptations, none of thecities engaged in adapting Bridges to Success reportedsignificant tensions between CBOs and school districts.Disentangling the reasons why the relationships in theBridges sites tended to be good from the beginning isalso difficult. As in the Beacons, both local context andmodel characteristics may be involved. In two of thethree Bridges to Success sites that were visited, a strongculture of collaboration existed between schools andCBOs prior to the ESS Adaptation. In the third, astrong collaboration existed between the United Wayand the school district, thus laying the groundwork forthe Bridges to Success collaboration. In addition, theBridges to Success model emphasizes that managementand decision-making will include the schools from thebeginning, thus allaying possible fears that schoolsmight have about letting CBOs into the schools.

The Importance of Previous Relationships andExperiencesAn early description of after-school initiatives reportedthat programs get off the ground more quickly if theyare built on pre-existing collaborations (Melaville,1998). In the ESS Initiative, national intermediariesand the Funds assumed that a city with a history ofcollaboration would provide a more conducive environ-ment for implementing the ESS Adaptation thanwould a city without such a history. To examine thatassumption it is necessary to look at how previous col-laborative efforts influenced the adaptation effort.Were the adaptations implemented more quickly oreffectively as a result of previous collaborations?Unfortunately, examining this issue is difficult becausehaving a collaborative environment was a key criteria(along with the commitment and capacity to carry outthe adaptation) for selecting sites; therefore, there isrelatively little variation among the sites with respectto the presence or absence of a history of localcollaborations.

5

Building Partnerships in the Planning Period

Only two sites, Denver and Atlanta, did not have pre-existing collaborations. When we visited, Atlanta wasin the early planning stages, making it difficult to com-ment on a relationship that was very new." Denver,however, did have particularly difficult planning andearly implementation periods. The collaboration'sexperiences are interesting because they are a testamentboth to how difficult forming collaborations can be andto how effectively such problems can be solved. Therewas considerable tension over roles and responsibilities,suggesting that the assumption made by the initiative'sdesigners may be correct. On the other hand, collabo-rators in Denver were aware of the difficulties of forg-ing their partnership and worked to hammer out rolesand responsibilities that were more functional. By theend of the first full year of implementation, the prog-ress in Denver was similar in many regards to that ofother sites. Thus, the lack of a pre-existing collabora-tion may be only a temporary impediment, as long ascollaborative members are aware of the difficulties andtake steps to address them. The text box providesdetails about the challenges facing Denver and the solu-tions found by the stakeholders.

Despite the fact that little variation existed among thesites with respect to the presence or absence of previ-ous collaborations, variation did exist in how the previ-ous collaborations were related to the collaborationcreated for the ESS Adaptation. In some cases, the keypersonnel involved in both the previous and the ESScollaborations are almost identical. Two of the Bridgesto Success cities we visitedJacksonville and Missoulaused the initiative to substantially enhance programsthat were already in place. In Missoula, Bridges toSuccess expanded a pre existing after-school projectfrom one to five schools. In Jacksonville, Bridges toSuccess added youth development and after-schoolactivities to an already extensive school/communitycollaboration that provides social services within theschools. In both cities, pre-existing collaboration easedthe planning and transition to implementation.

In other cities, overlap existed among personnel in theprevious and current ESS collaboration, which alsoinvolved additional types of institutions. Thus, inMinneapolis, a previous relationship existed amongcity agencies and schools in the form of MinneapolisRedesign, an initiative intended to provide social ser-vices within schools. The collaborative board behindMinneapolis Redesign is the Youth Coordinating

51

Forging Partnerships in Denver

Denver presents a good example of the challengesinherent in forging a collaborative effort where none hadexisted previously, or where those that had existedproved unsuccessful. It also presents a good exampleof how the challenges can be overcome.

Denver had difficulties forging a partnership with theschool system, as did the other Beacon sites. Denver'sdifficulties were compounded, however, because thefoundations that took the lead, the Rose CommunityFoundation (the fiscal agent) and the Piton Foundation(the local intermediary), had confusing roles for the firstyear of the initiative. Technically, the Rose CommunityFoundation provided overall management, but the PitonFoundation had been key in bringing the initiative toDenver, and so sometimes appeared to take onmanagement responsibilities. Staff at the BeaconCenters themselves were unsure what the twofoundations' roles were and to whom they wereultimately accountable.

Complicating matters were the relationships with thelead agencies, which were occasionally not sure whattheir responsibilities were vis-a-vis the collaboration.

The tensions and hard feelings became obvious to thepartners, and much time was spent in the second half ofthe first year addressing them. If the relationshipswithin the city are seen as a web, there were three lociat which work needed to be done. First, the founda-tions, each of which had a very strong commitment tothe initiative, hammered out their respective roles andresponsibilities. The fiscal agent agreed to limit itswork to management and fiscal oversight, and theintermediary became more focused on technicalassistance. Second, the school district, having receiveda significant concession in being able to veto potentiallead agencies, became more supportive. With the helpof a key school district member, the foundationsmediated the relationships between the schools andCB0s. Third, Beacon Center directors were concernedboth about whether they could realistically meet thegoals made for the initiative and what their relationshipsshould be to the two founda-tions. Thus, they met withkey oversight partners to discuss their concems. Inresponse, local initiative leaders agreed that the initialgoals had been set too high, and more realistic goalswere set. The founda-tions also clarified for the siteswhat sites could expect from them.

The work done among the partners to improve theirrelationships and clarify their roles proved successful.By the end of the first year of implementation thecollaborative's relationships were much improved.

52

Board (YCB), elected officials from the major publicgoverning.bodies that meet to discuss youth services inMinneapolis and to recommend specific allocations offunds across public agencies.

Similarly, in Savannah, the Youth Futures Authority(YFA) has a long history of collaboration with youth-serving organizations, but its recent history with theschool district is limited. Finally, in Central Falls, whilethe United Way and the school district had been inpartnership with early childhood CBOs for anotherinitiative, the Child Opportunity Zone, the Bridges toSuccess initiative required that the school district andthe United Way forge partnerships with a new set ofCBOs those serving older children and youth.

In all these cases, bringing in major new partners,whether schools or CBOs, proved challenging. CBOsin Minneapolis were actively courted and reassured thattheir participation in the Beacon initiative was impor-tant. While they could not be assured that their partici-pation was permanent, key stakeholders emphasizedthat they wanted to continue to involve the CBOs, whowere leery of participating. Addressing the CBOs' con-cerns went a long way toward improving the percep-tions the CBOs had of the school district.

Thus, pre-existing collaborations appear to have easedthe initial start-up phase of the project. Cities with ahistory of collaboration moved more quickly and hadfewer tensions about how to structure the collaborationthan did the one city with limited prior history. Inaddition, in the two cities in which the previous collab-oration became the ESS collaboration, the transition toESS was very smooth. Pre-existing collaborations didnot, however, eliminate challenges. In cities in whichnew stakeholderssuch as CBOs were added to apre-existing collaboration to create the ESS collabora-tion, negotiations and compromises were still necessaryto forge effective relationships.

We cannot, however, conclude that the presence ortype of pre-existing collaborations had any long-termeffects on the initiative. The one site, Denver, that didnot start off with a pre-existing collaboration, facedgreat tension, but successfully addressed its challenges.Similarly, sites that faced the need to negotiate withnew partners were often able to do so effectively. Bythe time implementation began, stakeholders in all cit-ies expressed optimism that their collaborations would


prove fruitful. The tensions during planning, there-fore, should be recognized for what they arc: develop-mental difficulties that face collaboratives in their earlyperiods. While we would not expect every communityto successfully navigate the challenges, the ESS experi-ence is a promising example of how to overcome eventhe most difficult ones.

Technical Assistance in Forging CollaborationsThe national intermediaries for three of the modelsCommunity Schools, Beacons and Bridges toSuccesswere charged with providing technical assis-tance to the sites throughout planning. Cities notedtwo specific areas in which technical assistance provedextremely useful in creating their collaborations: clari-fying decision-making and promoting the developmentof positive relationships among partners.

A key task of the intermediaries was to come into a cityat the request of one of the stakeholders, assess theoperations of the collaboration, examine its decisionsand make recommendations about how to address keychallenges. In a very real sense, intermediary staff actedas management consultants. Although they clarifiedgrant requirements when necessary, their extensiveexperience in school-community collaborations allowedthem to make suggestions for mediating tensions thatarose in allocating resources and responsibilities amongthe partners. For example, when Minneapolis partnersdid not agree on the role of Community Education, theintermediary helped find a compromise that met thegrant requirements and also provided CommunityEducation with a satisfactory role in the initiative.Intermediary staff were also crucial to the success ofearly negotiations with the school system in Denver.Their status as outsiders permitted them to become aneutral sounding board for the complaints of all par-ties. Their expertise in mediating political conflictswith schools allowed them to find a solution that satis-fied all the parties.

Another very important aspect of the technical assis-tance provided by the national intermediaries,especially in complexly structured Beacons and Bridgesto Success sites, was the opportunity the intermediariesgave cities in the planning stage to visit other citieswith active initiatives and go to cross-site conferences.Making visits to original model sites proved to be aparticularly useful way to illustrate the potential of theESS Adapta-tions and generate enthusiasm for the local


initiatives. Members of the planning and implementa-tion teams from the cities made visits to the originalmodels' sites at two different points in time. First, theplanning team members in the Beacon adaptation citiesmentioned that they had been to New York to see NewYork Beacon Centers several years prior to implemen-tation. For those cities, the New York Centers spurredkey planning team members to gather collaborators tothink about applying for the planning grant. Morecommonly, however, cities made visits near the end ofplanning or the beginning of implementation.

The visits helped some participants clarify theirthoughts about the scope and goals of the initiatives,which are extensive for every model. In particular, sev-eral people mentioned that they had not quite under-stood that the initiative hoped to strengthen local com-munities' voices in determining the services available toboth adults and youth:

It took me until September, when wewent to the Fund for the City of NewYork, that I understood the community-based part of it this wasn't just for youth,there needed to be community organizinggoing on with it...Having people talkabout the history, give the context, reallyhelped me a lot. It helped me refine, clar-ify and collect my thoughts about youthdevelopment in a way that I hadn't donebefore.

CBO Staff

The visits also sparked enthusiasm and support in pre-viously reluctant participants. Principals, in particular,reported that going to sec model sites showed themwhat was possible in the ESS Adaptation:

We visited New York in September, andit helped me to develop a mind set that Ithink will be necessary into the nextcentury. Schools, when we say we need

help from community agencies and par-ents, we don't just educate children 5days/weelz, 6 hours/day, 175 days/year.By keeping our schools open we back that

up so that we educate further. It buildscommunity relationships, can build some

community spirit. Again, after the nor-mal school hours and on weekendstheold mind set was you close the school up,

and it's safe and secure. You don't haveto worry about problems. That was themind set that I developed. And by goingto New York, I developed a new mind set.

Principal

The timing of such visits, however, is important. Turn-over in the initiatives, particularly among program staffand principals, can be high. In Minneapolis, three ofthe principals in the five schools selected to host theBeacon Centers were reassigned between planning andimplementation. As a result, had the Minneapolisgroup visited Ncw York during the planning period,enthusiasm would have been generated among princi-pals who were not involved in implementation. It hap-pened that the group went to New York in September,just before implementation began in October; thus theprincipals' enthusiasm was fresh just as implementationgot under way.

Visits to the original model sites, however, were justone way to generate support, understanding andenthusiasm. According to some staff, particularlythose involved in the Bridges to Success Adaptation,conferences that brought together all the programsprovided similar benefits:

We got the youth development coordina-tors to go and a principal. He's now likethe poster child [pr the program] , he'svery enthusiastic. The conference reallydid a lot for the youth development coor-dinators. They got to thinking moreabout what we were trying to do...Theygot to see that we aren't just doing thingsto do them. Now [one of the coordina-tors] is starting to think about gettingcommunity volunteers.

Oversight Committee Member

Since cross-site conferences are scheduled on a yearlybasis, they have the potential to provide an orientationto the goals and scope of the initiative for stakeholdersnew principals, new coordinators and new agencypartnerswho did not make earlier visits. This is

5 5

54

important, since turnover is proving to be a concern:the problem with the collaborative model of commu-nity/school after-school programs is that there are mul-tiple key people whose leaving may deeply affect imple-mentation. Ongoing conferences may ameliorate theproblem, but they may also prove challenging, since theintermediaries will probably need to balance the needto provide orientations to new staff with the need toprovide technical assistance that is responsive to thedevelopmental stage of the overall initiative.

Although the visits were perhaps most useful in trans-mitting the vision of the initiative to a range of stake-holders (which we address in the next chapter), theywere also useful in helping people within the cities toget to know one another better. Visits put principals inclose contact not only with program coordinators attheir schools, but also with local funders and executivestaff from the CBOs. Such visits helped stakeholdersdevelop a shared identity:

The New York trip (to see Beacon Cen-ters) bonded everyone together; [it's the]same thing with kids, take them on anovernight and they bond. We had to fig-ure out how to get around New York onthe subways!

Fiscal Agency Staff

SummaryCommunity initiatives, whether comprehensive orfocused (like the ESS Initiative) are designed to besensitive to local conditions. Partnerships and collabo-rative structures that work in one community areunlikely to work in quite the same way in another.ESS is no exception, and the process of adapting themodel to fit the specific cities began in the formationof the collaborations that did the planning. Partici-pants had several motivations for getting involved, butno one motivation appeared to determine whetherinvolvement continued into implementation.

Surprisingly, the existence of a previous collaboration,which is often assumed to be an indication of futurecollaborative success, did not seem to matter after thefirst year or so of the initiative, although we mustqualify that conclusion by noting that the variationamong the sites was limited. Both cities with pre-existing collaborations and the two cities without onehad to make significant efforts to involve key partners


and clarify roles. In cities that had pre-existing collabo-rations, the addition of major new partners or a changein the focus of the collaboration often resulted in theneed to re-examine roles and responsibilities. The onecity without a pre-existing collaboration was able toassemble an effective one after identifying areas inwhich relationships were strained or the roles of part-ners unclear.

One factor that stakeholders reported very useful toforging effective collaborations was the assistance ofthe national intermediaries in mediating early disputes.The experience that intermediary staff brought withthem from other community/school collaborationshelped find compromises and solutions to problemsthat may not have occurred to the ESS partners.

The Tasks of Planning 55

Vii. The Tasks of Planning The planning period was primarily a period of rela-tionship building as the partners completed three dis-crete planning tasks crucial to program implementa-tion. First, the planning teams conducted needsassessments and community mapping to help themdelineate overall goals and the scope of the local initia-tive. Second, specific schools were selected for pro-gram implementation. Third, the initiative's financingwas identified. Although the Wallace-Readers' DigestFunds provided much of the funding for the initiative,each city was expected to provide matching funds.This chapter describes the strategies that the citiesused as they carried out the tasks, and highlights thosethat appeared particularly effective.

Needs Assessments and CommunityMappingIdentifying local needs and resources is a fundamentaltask of creating community initiatives that are sensi-tive to local conditions. Without adequate knowledgeof the local environment, it is difficult to know whatsteps should be taken to improve the lives of youthand their families. But another important reason todo a needs assessment is that it can be a powerful toolfor creating a shared vision (Kotloff ct al., 1995).

Each ESS city was required to carry out a needs as-sessment as part of the planning process, but how itdidso was left to the city. There was therefore great vari-ation in how localities completed the task. Althoughthe needs assessments were an integral part of theplanning phase, their utility as planning tools to guideprogram development appears to have been limited infive of the communities. Typically, the lists of needsor desires produced by the assessments were verybroad, and little was done to prioritize them. Therelationship between the needs assessments and pro-gram planning and implementation was generallyweak, especially in cities with multiple schoolsinvolved in the initiativeDenver, Minneapolis, Jack-sonville, Savannah, Central Falls and Missoula. Thatthose cities were less successful in linking findings ofthe needs assessments to specific program implemen-tation is not surprising, since each ESS center serves adifferent community, with different resources andsomewhat different needs. The needs assessmentswere more likely to be related to program planningwhen the assessment concerned only one community.Despite their limited usefulness in program planning,

56

the needs assessments were fundamental to developinga shared vision and community support for the work inmany cities.

In four cities, principals observed that focus groups andsurveys conducted at the schools were important inestablishing the programs' legitimacy. Since we did notask the principals about the needs assessment, princi-pals who brought it up did so in the context of assess-ing their experiences of the initiative:

[The coordinator has] done really well asfar as making sure that the whole com-munity is involvedwe did a survey oftypes of programs that community peoplewanted to see. It was a community-driven program.

Principal

I also wanted to make sure that the kidshad a say in what they wanted to do.There were focus groups. I remember[the youth coordinator] doing that, andthere were questions about whether thekids would be interested in a homeworkclubwe have a homework club throughSCOPE, it goes four afternoons/week.The kids love it, they have no place athome to study/nobody to help them.

Principal

As we saw in earlier chapters, principal support isimportant in getting an Extended-Service Schoolprogram off the ground. Thus, needs assessmentsespecially those that include youth in focus groups,surveys, or even in mappingmay be an importanttool in creating and sustaining the principal's supportby building consensus among the principal's keyconstituentsparents and youth.

School SelectionIn most cities that begin after-school initiatives, a smallnumber of schools are chosen to pilot the programsbefore expanding them. Factors underlying the deci-sion to begin with a limited number of schools includelimited funding that can sustain programs only in a fewschools. In addition, leaders of local after-schoolefforts hope that the programs prove effective and thatpolitical goodwill can be generated to increase fundingfor additional school programs.


In two cities, the needs assessments were conductedby youth and/or community residents. The strategiesused were unusual, and we summarize them below:

Youth Mapping in DenverStaff from the Piton Foundation, a local organizationthat has taken a key leadership role in the DenverBeacons Initiative, coordinated a youth mapping effort.Training in youth mapping was provided by the Centerfor Youth Development and Policy Research of theAcademy for Educational Development, and eight youthspent two weeks conducting surveys within theneighborhoods where Beacon Centers were to belocated. The youth mapping created significantenthusiasm and receptiveness for youth leadership andinvolvement. In addition, specific program categories,such as technology, were added based on the findings.The Denver Beacon Centers have continued toemphasize youth involvement: youth assist in activityimplementation and office management, and par-ticipate in structured leadership groups.

Focus groups in Long BeachStaff from California State University, Long Beach,conducted focus groups with children and school staffseparately as well as a series with parents, teachersand agencies together. They also trained communityresidents to facilitate focus groups with parents fromthe community. The process required both an initialtraining and a follow-up training to ensure that thefacilitators did not impose their own opinions on thegroup. After transcribing all the focus groups' pro-ceedings, planners identified eight key areas of actionfor the Stevenson-YMCA Community School: safety,sports, increasing interaction between teachers andfamilies, family learning activities, child academic andcareer development, parent career development, finearts and leisure, and a parent center. The plannersthen worked to design activities in each area.

Also, sometimes political goodwill must be generatedto get an initiative off the ground, and collaborativepartners must identify commodities that can beexchanged to ensure support from other partners thathave critical resources. Locating an after-school pro-gram in a specific school occasionally becomes one ofthe concessions made for key partners.

For all these reasons, school selection is a crucial stepin planning after-school initiatives. The researchexamined the criteria used by the ESS planning teamsin selecting schools. In future work, it will examinewhat influence, if any, the decisions had on implemen-tation, including the sustainability and expansion of theinitiative. Because this report is based on data only

vu


through the first year of implementation, it is not pos-sible to fully answer questions about the relationshipbetween school selection criteria and outcomes. Someoutcomesincluding the building of political goodwilltoward continued fundingare not achievable withinsuch a short time-frame, and thus cannot be studied. Itis possible, however, to identify the criteria cities usedand their reasons for doing so.

Schools in Low-Income CommunitiesThe mission of the Wallace-Reader's Digest Funds is to"foster fundamental improvement in the quality of edu-cational and career development opportunities for allschool-age youth, and to increase access to these im-proved services for young people in low-income com-munities." As a result, all the elementary and middleschools selected in the ESS communities serve highproportions of low-income youth.' Twenty-five per-cent of the schools reported that between 42 and 70percent of their students are eligible for the federal freeand reduced school lunch program. In the other 75percent of the schools, more than 70 percent of all stu-dents arc eligible.

Principal SupportIn a very small number of schools among the models,principals were key in advocating for the schools'inclusion in the extended-service school effort. In boththe Community School cities, the initiative built on aprevious university/school case-management collabora-tion. In the early 1990s, the Wallace-Readers' DigestFunds had funded an interprofessional developmentproject for teachers and social workers. That initiativeoriginally funded a full-time social worker responsiblefor providing services and supervising social work stu-dents in a public school setting. University personnelin both cities indicated that the schools' principals hadbeen eager to collaborate with the university and will-ing to provide school resources. Although that initia-tive ultimately ended, the Funds, working withFordham University and the Children's Aid Society,decided that the universities involved provided a prom-ising pool of applicants for the Community Schools'Adaptation because both initiatives included greaterschool/community integration. The principals reportedthat the earlier collaborations had provided importantbenefits that they hoped to expand through the ESSinitiative.

Similarly, in two Beacons citiesMinneapolis andDenverstrong long-time principals at two schoolslobbied hard to be included in the Beacon Adaptationgrant. Like the principals in the Community Schoolcities, both perceived that the initiative could provideimportant benefits to youth and familiesbenefits thatcould not easily be provided in the context of the aca-demic day. In one case, a principal contributed a sub-stantial sum from his school budget to bring the initia-tive in.

Cases in which principals drove their school's selectionwere rareit happened in only 4 of the 27 schools inthe intensive research study. More commonly, thoughprincipals' support was perceived to be important, theydid not campaign for inclusion. A principal's supportof an extended-service school is important in determin-ing the course of implementation: principals may con-trol school space, they may be able to influence teach-ers' perceptions of an extended-service school, and theymay provide or withhold school resources. Therefore,planning team members in the majority of cities indi-cated in interviews that a principal's enthusiasm andsupport had been an important criteria for selectingschools. We only heard of one case in which a schoolwas selected after the principal demurred.

Principal turnover was relatively high in the schools,and thus their support might be short-lived. Elemen-tary school principals were promoted to middle school,middle school principals promoted to high schools,principals in low-achieving schools were replaced byprincipals from higher-achieving schools. In our sam-ple of nine cities, approximately 25 percent of the prin-cipals had been replaced between the planning and im-plementation period. The principal in Denver who hadbeen so instrumental in getting a Beacon placed in herschool was promoted after the planning period, and thenew principal needed to be introduced to the initiative.In Minneapolis, a supportive principal was transferredto another school.

The high turnover rates among principals in the inten-sive study cities was also reflected in thc organizationalsurvey. Thirty percent of the respondents indicatedthat the principal had been in place less than one year.Furthermore, 66 percent of the schools reported thatthey had two or more principals in the prior five years.

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Principal turnover in urban schools is common. Urbanschools that serve low-income studentsthose targetedby the ESS Initiativeoften have high proportions oflow-achieving students. School teachers and adminis-trators are increasingly held accountable for studentperformance, so one method by which school districtsattempt to raise student academic performance is tochange school leadership.

Because turnover among principals is so high, usingprincipals' support as a criteria in school selection mayease early implementation, but probably will not deter-mine the overall course of an after-school program.New principals may be more or less supportive thanoutgoing principals. New principals will almost cer-tainly require orientation to the scope and goals of theafter-school programs. Program staff will also need tomeet with principals to discuss ways in which they canwork together. In addition, principals' attention is usu-ally diverted for a year or so as they get to know theschool's faculty and students, and establish their leader-ship.

School LevelMany cities decided that it was important to includemiddle schools in their initiative. The middle schoolyears have been long been identified as a critical periodfor youth. Parental supervision usually diminishes.Youth become increasingly autonomous in choosingactivities. Risk behaviors rise dramatically, in partbecause there is so little adult supervision, especially inthe hours immediately after school (Carnegie Councilon Adolescent Development, 1992). At the same time,the menu of after-school activities common in highschoolsmusic, the arts, leadership groups, paid jobsand volunteer activitieshave largely becomeunavailable to middle school youth.

More pragmatically, one planning team member notedthat middle schools are a good choice if the initiativehopes to attract youth from middle, high and elemen-tary schools: "elementary kids like middle school andit's not too far back for high school youth."

For all these reasons, of the 45 schools involved in theESS Initiative for which we have information, 50 per-cent are middle schools, including one that servesK-8th grade. An additional 40 percent of the selectedschools arc elementary schools. In Missoula, wherethree elementary schools that feed C.S. Porter Middle


Schoola school with a project on which the localBridges to Success initiative was modeledwere cho-sen, a planning team member said they were selected so"we could get kids earlier and get them used to thesetypes (e.g., youth development) of activities." Theremaining 10 percent are high schools.

School LocationFour of the six cities with multiple schools in their ini-tiatives chose a strategy governing center location.Two of the citiesDenver and Minneapolisdecidedto locate services in areas of the city that had high needas defined by academic achievement and the povertyrates of the students' families. The other two citiesJacksonville and Savannahdecided to spread theirefforts across their cities.

All Jacksonville's school districts were invited to applyfor Bridges to Success funding. By spreading centersacross the city, the city hoped to generate broad politi-cal goodwill to encourage future funding. The plan-ning team in Savannah, which was led by the YouthFutures Authority (YFA), made a similar decision tospread the Beacon Centers across the city. YFA, a city-wide collaboration to improve youth services, had longfocused its attention on Area C, a high-poverty neigh-borhood near downtown, and had picked up someresentment within the city that so many resources werebeing devoted to that area. To allay the resentmentand any possible effects it might have on YFA's abilityto be a strong leader in youth programs and collabora-tions, the ESS planning team chose areas in cast, westand central Savannah.

It is too early to know whether such strategic place-ment of extended-service schools in a community willincrease the initiatives' political capital. This is a ques-tion that will be followed as we look at how the citiesplan future funding.

Financing the ProgramsAcquiring the necessary resourcesfinancial andnonfinancialto implement an ESS program is a chal-lenging assignment even with the current emphasis atthe federal, state and local levels on after-school pro-gramming for youth. Therefore, one of the majorplanning tasks was determining the resources needed toget the program off the ground and putting these re-sources together. Potentially, many streams of fundingcan support the programs: existing resources can be


redirected, such as reassigning school personnel and/orCBO personnel to staff the program or particular activ-ities; federal, state and local funds can be used or redi-rected; business and philanthropies can provide money;and volunteers can help support the program. How-ever, many of these strategics take time to develop.Relationships with business and political leaders needto be fostered. Public support needs to be garnered.Proposals need to be written. In this section we discussthe programs' budgets, and how they assembled theresources they needed to get started. The Wallace-Reader's Digest Funds grant was a part of the strategy,but only a part.

It is important to know total program cost becauseit represents the full value of the resources that must beassembled. All ESS budgets, however, understate thefull cost of the program because they do not reflectthe full range of community resources that supportthe effort. The most common and largest in-kindresources provided, but mostly omitted from the bud-gets, are the office and program space donated by theschools. In the next report, we will systematicallyinvestigate the full set of resources used in the pro-grams, value them and calculate the total annual costper enrolled youth. To give practitioners and funders asense of what is entailed in supporting early implemen-tation, however, this report examines what the pro-grams expected their out -of- pocket costs to be byreviewing early budgets and how they leveragedother resources.

BudgetsAt a minimum, all programs had to find or finance astandard list of resources to make the after-school pro-gram operational: salaries for staff including a projectdirector and school coordinator; activity costs (whichmay include activity leaders' time, equipment, and cus-todial services and supplies); some office expenses suchas space and equipment; and other costs. For someprograms, transportation is a necessity, for others it isoptional. Some provide snacks for the participants.Other expenditures include consultant time for execu-tive administrative assistance, recruitment of new staff,public relations and development work. Before theprograms began, the planning team defined the levelof resources they needed and how they would covertheir budgets, both by new monies and redirected ordonated funds. They submitted to the Fund three-yearbudgets at the end of the planning period.

Estimated annual per-program start-up budgets variedacross and within models. These estimates are notbudgets for operating a mature program because theyinclude expenses associated with start-up, such as extrahiring costs, executive oversight time and technicalassistance. They are, however, rough estimates of whatthe cities believed they would spend getting the pro-grams on the ground. On average, Beacon programsbudgeted between $250,000 and $300,000 per schoolper year. Budgets for Community School programsranged from $150,000 to $300,000 per school annu-ally. Bridges to Success programs budgeted an averageof $80,000 to $90,000 per school annually. Within-model per-school budgets across cities, however, werealso significant and varied as much as 100 percent.

The magnitude of the budgets reflects both differencesin the intended intensity and size of the programs.From Chapter IV, we know that the size of the pro-grams differed at the end of the first year. The pro-grams' relative sizes can help put the budgets into per-spective. One should not, however, calculate a per-stu-dent annual cost from these numbers because the bud-gets include start-up costs and not all the students par-ticipated for the full year. With these caveats in mind,we found that Beacons had enrolled many more stu-dents at the end of the first year than did the othermodelsan average of approximately 275 students perschool. The Bridges programs had the next largestaverage annual enrollments of approximately 135 stu-dents, followed by Community Schools at 120 stu-dents. The WEPIC programs are not yet fully imple-mented, thus we do not know how many students theywill serve. While we will investigate the per-studentcost of the various programs for our next report, it islikely that the Community Schools model budgets themost per student. The relative position of the othermodels is less clear.

Assembling ResourcesThe sources from which the cities assembled theneeded resources differed widely, suggesting thatno one size fits all. Each strategy was related to the

city's specific context and past experiences. If theESS program grew out of a previously existing after-school program, the old funders generally continuedtheir support. If the school had a family or parentcenter, some of these resources were often tapped.

60

If there were organizations that conducted satelliteyouth programs, such as libraries or museums, theseresources could often be brought in to the ESSprograms.

Established organizations could also apply for grantsfor new programs to be implemented by the ESS pro-grams.

Programs of a similar size with similar resources canvary greatly in how their funding package is assembled.In general, programs assemble the needed resourcesthrough a combination of commitments from commu-nity organizations, in-kind donations by citizens andbusinesses, the use of the school building as the site ofprogram activities and grants from private (and in afew instances, corporate) foundations. Subsidized ordonated time from community leaders, school districtpersonnel and school principals is also essential for theplanning and implementation of programs as well astheir continued existence.

Costs covered with redirected funds or in-kind dona-tions exceed the expenses paid for by cash contribu-tions by one or two hundred percent. However, thecash funds raised from foundations, government agen-cies, the United Way and youth-funding groups areoften the catalyst for leveraging these other resources.The Wallace-Reader's Digest Funds grant was the realspark for most of the ESS cities (though quite a fewhad either been thinking about doing something likeESS or had an after-school program already in place).Programs used their Funds grants to significantly lever-age other support.

As discussed earlier in this chapter, the programs firstbuilt a partnership of funders that mirrored the imple-mentation partnerships, but then reached out to otherfunders. For the Bridges to Success programs, theUnited Way, the sponsor of that program model, is asubstantial funder through direct grants, but the schooldistrict also provides redirected funds. The WEPICprograms receive major support, mainly personnel notaccounted for in the budgets, from the university thatsponsors them. This, coupled with redirected fundingfrom the school district, are the main sources of sup-port for WEPIC programs. The Community Schoolshave two major funders, the Funds and the school dis-trict. Beacons programs have been the most successfulin expanding their major funding base to include local


agencies, the federal government, local government andother foundations.

Because leveraging noncash resources is so important,we present an example of how cash funds leveragedmany more resources.

How Much Cash Is Needed to Get Started in aSchool?As discussed above, only some of the resources neededto run an ESS program are covered by cash payments.However, in practice, some unrestricted funds are nec-essary to start a program. "How much?" ask manypeople interested in starting these types of program.For the most part, the more monetary resources onehas the richer or bigger the program can be, but whatis the reasonable lower-bound estimate? Generally,programs used their monetary resources to fund corestaff's time, to subsidize or fully pay for some youthactivities, and to cover some administrative costs.

A review of the expenditures of a sample of 11 ESScities shows that a school's program can be started onless than $30,000 cash annually, provided it can lever-age other resources and the use of a school building.For example, one ESS city operated in three schoolswith the cash budget shown in Table 7.1. The pro-gram director managed the program at one of the threeschools and the school coordinator covered the twoother schools. Thus, this city averaged $30,000 perschool. However, as we discussed in Chapter V, thequality of the program (or the mental health of thecoordinator) is compromised with a half-time schoolcoordinator. All the programs with half-time schoolcoordinators are trying to find funds to increase theschool coordinators' time.

Table 7.1A Minimal Cash Budget in ESS City with ThreeSchools

Salary and Fringe Benefits:Program Director (20 hrs/wk) $20,000One School Coordinator (40 hrs/wk) $30,000

Resources for youth activities $25,000

Office $15,000

Cash Total $90,000for 3 schools


Recognizing that they needed more staff, initiativeleaders in the city used the initial cash grants to lever-age redirected funds. They tripled the budget andexpanded program capacity, which included additionalcoordination staff for each school. Table 7.2 shows themore complete budget. The redirected funds (in bold)provided additional staff support, office equipment andsupplies, staff development and administrative support.

In two schools, the school coordinator's time wascomplemented by two Amcricorps workers sponsoredby a CBO. At another school, a part-time socialworker in the program was paid for by the state. Atanother school, a school resource person worked parttime and was paid for by the city's Police Department.Additional overall supervision was provided by the di-rector of the previous after-school program, yet thisindividual's salary was paid for by a community non-profit. Lastly, in schools that had a Family ResourceCenter (FRC), staff members (funded by another localCBO) donated some time to help organize parent andyouth activities.

Table 7.2Expanded Budget with Redirected Funds

Much of the youth activity was paid for through acombination of cash and redirected funds. It is typicalin this city for a youth-serving organization to donatethe activity leader's time (redirected funds) to the pro-gram, while the ESS program supplies the necessaryequipment and supplies, using its cash funds. Forexample, the local museum sends its staff to the schoolbuilding to run activities without charging theprogram.

Many other CBOs ran activities in a similar manner.The school district paid teachers to run the program'safter-school activities. The university partner in thecollaborative paid for all the expenses associated withthe program's community service programmingrecruiting leaders, identifying projects, transportingthe participants to the schools, etc. The space in whichactivities took place was provided by the school district,but this cost was an "off-budget" item and does notappear in the full cash and redirected funds financialstatement, illustrating how even the total budgetunderestimates the total resource cost of the program.

Salaries and Fringes:Program directorOne school coordinatorAdditional school staff

Youth Activities:Monetary resources for youth activitiesService-learning training for sites (from a university)Museum-sponsored activities (staff and equipment)CBO-sponsored activitiesTeacher-led activities

Administrative Expenses:Administrative time of sponsoring agency and community partnersCash expensesAgency-donated office space for project directorUse of office equipment and supplies

$ 20,00030,00068,000

Subtotal $118,000

$ 25,00019,00050,00025,00015.000

Subtotal $134,000

$ 13,00015,000

05,000

Subtotal $ 30,000

Cash, plus redirected total $285,000

63

62

Many administrative costs were absorbed by the spon-soring agency. It provided office space for the pro-gram director (no value placed on this contribution),shared its copy machine and other equipment, and pro-vided the program director with supplies and postage.The executive director of the fiscal agency gave severalhours a week to sit on the management board, advisethe director, and assist in coalition-building in the com-munity. This administrator also often assists in obtain-ing additional funding or resources for the program.Yet, the administrator's full salary continued to be paidby the fiscal agency. Additional administrative supportcame from a well-established community nonprofit thatassisted in recruitment and screening of program staff,and processed the payroll for program staff. The valueof the community nonprofit organization's contribu-tion appears in the program's total budget even thoughchecks were not written to the agency.

This example illustrates not only the creativity of theplanning and management teams in locating the neededresources, but also the degree to which the budgetsboth cash and in-kindunderestimate the trueresource cost of these programs.

Summary of Planning ExperienceThis chapter has described how the city collaborationsplanned their local initiatives. The strategies taken toconduct needs assessments, select schools and planfinancing were diverse, reflecting the different politicaland social service environments in which the ESS Ini-tiative was planned. Multiple paths led to the samegoal. Nevertheless, some general conclusions may bedrawn from the information and we summarize thembriefly.

The results of the needs assessments and communitymapping undertaken by the cities were crucial to build-ing support for the initiativeespecially among schoolprincipals. The results' usefulness in guiding programplanning was less clear, especially in communities thatinvolved multiple schools.

School selection was guided by a combination of cri-teria ranging from the academic performance and eco-nomic backgrounds of the school's population, to geo-graphic considerations, to principal support. Citieshoping to build broad -based political support for theirlocal initiatives selected schools across cities. Some cit-ies were able to avoid added transportation costs by


selecting neighborhood schools, although cities thatbus large proportions of students do not have thatoption. Principal support was almost always a key con-sideration. Since turnover among urban school princi-pals is so high, however, a large number of schools hadnew principals by the time implementation began.

Assembling the resources to start and sustain the pro-gram was and still is a major challenge for the collabo-rative members. The cash grants the cities raised donot nearly cover the full cost of the program or even ofthe explicit program budget. Cities use these cashgrants, however, to leverage large amounts of in-kindand redirected resourcesfrom collaborative partners(the schools and local organizations) and others. Thesedonated resources include such items as the use andmaintenance of the school building, executivesupervision and many providers' time.

Management and Governance 63

VIII Management and Governance The transition from planning to implementation wasa crucial period for the local initiatives. Decision-making authority over day-to-day management andresponsibilities for sustaining the initiative had to betransferred from the planning committee to othergroups: program directors and school coordinatorswho would be coordinating and directing the pro-grams; city -wide oversight committees; and school-level governance councils. In almost all cities, specificdecisions needed to be made about who would coordi-nate the local programs and what programs would beimplemented.

This chapter describes the decision-making structuresthat were set-up and evolved at the school and city lev-els and their respective responsibilities. We distinguishday-to-day management of programs from governance.Day-to-day management includes scheduling and coor-dinating activities as well as overseeing operations.Governance includes making higher-level decisionssuch as the types of activity to be offered, staffing poli-cies and plans to sustain the programs. For example, adecision to hire older youth to implement or staff activ-ities as a way of developing their leadership and jobskills would be a policy decision. Deciding whichyouth to hire would be a management decision. Simi-larly, setting annual budgets would be a governancedecision, whereas administering the budget is part ofday-to-day management. In addition to the distinctionbetween management and governance at the schoollevel, in the cities that have multiple schools involved inthe initiative, governance often takes place at both theschool and city levels. Such cities therefore had over-sight committees responsible for decisions that cutacross the school sites or concerned the initiative'sfuture sustainability; they were often composed ofplanning team members. We begin our discussion witha description of front-line managementthe schoolcoordinators. Then we discuss the broader governancestructures in which they were embedded. In particular,the chapter addresses the followingquestions:

5

What was the role and the experience of theschool coordinators?Among the three types of school-level gover-nance observedsmall team, lead agency andshared lead agency/school councilhow didthey differ and what were the advantages anddisadvantages of each?

64

What were the roles of the oversight commit-tees in the cities that had them?

Unlike the program aspects discussed in earlier chap-ters, model type made a significant difference in gover-nance from the beginning of implementation, sincemost of the models prescribed the governance struc-ture. In addition, whether one school (as in Commu-nity Schools) or multiple schools were involved in theinitiative significantly affected governance needs.Therefore, we discuss how the models matteredthroughout the chapter.

School-level Management: the SchoolCoordinatorGetting an after-school program off the ground in aschool is a daunting and complex assignment. The re-sponsibility for making it happen at a particular schoolfell most heavily on the school coordinator. Many ofthe school coordinators we talked to liken the job tobeing a ringmaster. The response to "What do youdo?" was often "What don't I do!"

My role is to make connections... makingit happengetting building permits,finding free rooms for activities, develop-ing alternative plans if they aren'tfree...tracking partici-pation...preparingrosters for the staff ..gathering data...Ihave done programs toochess club. Iknow that's not supposed to be my role,but I couldn't find anyone to do it. I didservice club and...I tutor in the tutoringclub. The logistics take most of my time.

School Coordinator

At a minimum, coordinators had to provide activitieseither themselves or by identifying and engagingactivity providers; negotiate with the principals, teach-ers and custodians to obtain access to space for theactivities; recruit children; and monitor activities.While these basic tasks arc the necessary componentsof an after-school program, they are not sufficient toensure that the program is well-run. Coordinatorsmust also communicate with the principal, communi-cate with the teachers and custodians, and communi-cate with parents.

ESS school coordinators, however, were never envi-sioned as lone operators. They, instead, were seen as

66


the front-line workers in a collaboration among severalinstitutions. At the city level, many institutions wereexpected to be involved. But even at the school level,the school, a lead agency, other service providers, thecommunity and sometimes a university were expectedto be involved. While the involvement and resourcesof these multiple agencies can be advantageous to theprogram, it also makes the job of school coordinatormore difficult as he/she has to deal with multiple mas-tersthe principal, the lead agency and the commu-nity. This section describes who the coordinators wereand how they were selected.

The Coordinators' BackgroundsGiven the complexity of the school coordinator's job,does it matter what expertise the coordinator has?Does it matter if the coordinator has an educationbackground? A youth service background? Experiencewith the community? Experience with the school's leadagency? Experience with the schoolthe principal,teachers and parents? For example, teachers and prin-cipals may respect a teacher more than a non-teacher.Similarly, ex-teachers may understand the school cul-ture more than nonteachers. On the other side, indi-viduals with youth service backgrounds may be morerespected by other CBO staff than teachers arc.

Among the 27 schools we have examined in depth, wetalked with 44 key coordinating staff members, namelyschool coordinators or assistant coordinators. Of these44, two lived in the community, six had worked in the

The School Coordinator's Responsibilities

The responsibilities held by the school coordinatorsdiffered somewhat by city and school depending onwhether funds existed for an assistant, but coordinatorswere generally responsible for:

Recruiting ParticipantsRecruiting and/or subcontracting with providersSupervising program staffCoordinating activity schedulesManaging school/program relationshipsObtaining space for activitiesConvening site councilsMonitoring programs, including attendanceReporting to lead agenciesAdministering the program budget

In some schools they also provided activities them-selves, either on an ongoing basis or as a substitutewhen a provider did not show up.


school in which they later became coordinators, andfour had worked for the school's lead agency. Fourhad teaching degrees but had not taught at their ESSschools. Most of the coordinators had no immediateconnection to the community, school or lead agencybefore being hired (though many had worked withchildren in the past in other youth-serving organiza-tions or government-funded programs).

As the numbers indicate, programs did not look partic-ularly for individuals with education degrees or teach-ing experience. In fact, most programs at first wereinterested in individuals with experience serving youthoutside of school, especially in other after-school activi-ties. Most of the sites made this choice so their ESSprograms would not "feel like school," and the pro-gram would not be overly controlled by the schoolpartner. Cost was another factor that pushed sitesaway from hiring teachers. In general, teachers arepaid two or three times more than are other youth-serving workers. The ESS Adaptation cities couldtherefore hire more staff or allocate their resources toother needs by hiring less expensive, nonteaching staff.

The Effects of Coordinator's Backgrounds. In examin-ing the early implementation experience, programs atthe schools did not appear to be affected by the educa-tional or youth programming experience of the coordi-nators. As we saw in Chapter V, however, forging pos-itive relationships between the school-day staff andafter-school staff was easier if the coordinator hadexperience in the school in which she/he became thecoordinator. In a similar vein, the research asked if itmattered whether the coordinator had previous experi-ence working with the specific CBO that acted as thelead agency. Although CBOs typically did not thinkthey could spare staff, and thus tended to hire new staffto coordinate the after-school programs, in two sitesthe coordinators had worked for the CBO.

Their experiences show the advantages that previousexperience may bring to the effort. When the leadagency was willing to provide additional resources,these individuals were able to draw on the assets of theCBO more effectively than were less knowledgeablecoordinators:

[That program] works better 'cause [thecoordinator] was a worker in [the leadagency] and they have a relationship with

67

her. That is not true of the other coordi-nators... [She] had been an employee andshe knows the people there and the ropes.

Project Director

In addition to having strong relationships with CBOstaff that helped the two coordinators as they imple-mented the programs at the schools, knowing whatthe CBO's resources were could benefit programs.One long-time employee of a youth-serving organiza-tion who became a coordinator was able to bringresources into the after-school program because sheknew people in the CBO who were able to provide spe-cific activities.

Although the relationships the coordinators bringwith them to their program are important, it hasbecome clear to all who arc involved that turnoverin principals, school staff, coordinators, lead agencystaff and youth workerscan easily wipe out anybenefit. Relationship building, thus, must be seenas an ongoing process.

School-level GovernanceSince the coordinators were not solo operators, butwere in fact embedded in one of three governancestructures, we looked next at those structures and howthey cased or impeded implementation. The threestrategies that cities used to govern programs at theschool level were:

Staff from the lead agency oversaw programactivities at the school.Small teams of equal partners from a few insti-tutions set policies and oversaw the programs;andStaff from lead agencies and school-level coun-cils shared decision-making and oversight ofprograms.

Each governance strategy has potential advantagesand disadvantages, and this section describes thosestructures and discusses their relative strengths andweaknesses. Table 8.1 delineates the planned strat-egics each city followed to oversee programs at theschools. As we describe, however, several cities hadaltered their strategics by the end of the first year ofimplementation.


Table 8.1Planned Governance Structures at the Schools

Lead agency governance Small-team governanceShared governance between school-levelcouncils and lead agency

Minneapolis

Missoula

Atlanta

Aurora

Boston

Long Beach

Central Falls

Denver

Jacksonville

Savannah

When Lead Agencies Oversee After-SchoolProgramsThe simplest governance strategy was to have coordi-nators plan and implement the after-school programsin conjunction with their direct supervisors at theirCBO. Thus day-to-day management and governancewere intertwined and embedded in one institution.Under those conditions, some coordinators were ableto make budget allocations as well as manage them, toplan the program's array of activities as well as imple-ment them. In sum, the coordinators and their leadagencies both managed and governed the programs.Two cities took this route at the beginning of the ini-tiative. Having lead agencies staff the school sites andplan the programs minimized confusion over who wasresponsible for decisions.

The efficacy of using community-based organizationsand their staff to oversee and coordinate the after-school programs depended in part on the organiza-tional strengths and commitment of the CBO itself.

All else being equal, when strong youth developmentorganizations with a strong commitment to the localinitiatives served as lead CBOs, program governanceand implementation were relatively smooth. As weobserved in Chapter III, however, the commitments ofthe lead agencies to the school-based ESS programsvaried for several reasons. Strong CBOs with weakcommitments were not necessarily any more effectivethanor even as effective as smaller CBOs with lessorganizational capacity and greater commitment to thelocal initiative. School coordinators who wereemployed by strong CBOs with weak commitmentsometimes reported that they did not get adequate sup-port from their agencies. In contrast, a small CBOwith limited organizational capacity could overcome its

deficits if the agency's executive staff strongly sup-ported the ESS program. Under those circumstances,executive staff could provide needed support andresources to program coordinators.

Small Team Approach to School-levelGovernanceIn four cities, key planning partners governed activitiesat the schools. In those cities, the planning partnersworked in relatively small groups to identify promisingproviders and decide how to allocate available funds.School principals were typically key members of theteams, as were university and CBO personnel. Theteams were responsible for both day-to-day oversightof the programs and planning to sustain the initiativebeyond the initial grant.

One characteristic of the small teams was the presenceof pre-existing relationships among several team mem-bers. As a result, the partners had developed strongand effective working relationships. While the specificcontent of the ESS initiative may have differed frompartners' prior efforts, their pre-existing relationshipshelped limit tensions prevalent in so many other cities.Another factor that may have reduced the tension inschools managed by small teams of people was thatonly a limited number of perspectives was brought tothe table. It became easier to work out areas of dis-agreement if it was not necessary to navigate amongmany views. Although the partners seldom assignedspecific roles and responsibilities, the ambiguity in theirroles rarely caused significant tension since partnerscould sit down in groups of two or three andaddress their concerns together.

The small team structure is most likely to appear in theCommunity Schools and WEPIC models because they


tend to be in single-school cities. The demand andneed for developing a larger oversight committee is notpresent when trouble-shooting and policy-setting canbe easily done by two or three people. Although theleaders of the local initiatives with this kind of gover-nance structure would like to have broader school-district support, the initiatives can progress without it,which is not possible in cities where three to five ormore schools are involved.

The data on their accomplishments during the first yearof implementation suggest that small team governancemay have some potential drawbacks. Although theteams we observed were able to implement programswithin the schools relatively quickly, sustaining the ini-tiative over time appears more difficult. The time thatmembers of the teams can contribute to issues ofsustainability will likely be limited as the initiativeunfolds. All members of the team have other majoroccupational responsibilities, such as teaching, writingor administrative duties, and thus their time and atten-tion are split.

Another potential limitation of the small team structureis that although CBO executives on the teams may haveextensive experience identifying and lobbying for pub-lic funds, principals and university professors are lesslikely to have such expertise. In this area, the smallteams lack the capacity of the larger oversight commit-tees in which school district administrators or govern-ment officials already have extensive experience inthinking about long-term funding for youth services.

Finally, in the four schools where we observed smallteam management, three had a dynamic principalwho was crucial to the local initiative's leadership.While we saw other dynamic principals in otherschools, not all principals were strong and forcefulleaders. Small team governance may depend more onstrong leadership and support from the principal thando other types of governance structure.

Shared Decision-making Between School-levelCouncils and Lead Agency StaffThe third form of school-level governance consisted ofshared decision making between the staff of the leadagency and a school-level council comprising represen-tatives of the schools, local organizations and commu-nity residents. The push for community participationin planning and decision-making came from the cities

themselves, the national intermediaries and the Funds.An assumption behind many community initiatives isthat grass roots community buy-in and participation isan essential component in creating sustainable andwell-used community resources. In addition, in the1990s, the philanthropic and funding community wasinterested in strengthening the social ties among peopleand institutions in low-income communities. Eachmodel in ESS emphasizes the importance of commu-nity involvement. For example, the Bridges to Successmodel requires community involvement in decision-making, especially parental involvement. According toa brochure published by the national intermediary, oneBridges principle is, "parents must have a significantrole in governance at all levels of Bridges." A secondprinciple is that the school-level councils are "the locusof control and structure for integrated child and familycenters and services."

Since one of the goals of the initiative is to build localcommunity support and engagement, the citiesassigned to the school-level councils a variety of rolesthat would permit them to participate in meaningfulways. Councils could identify community and youthneeds, thereby framing the kinds of programming thatwould be offered. They could read proposals for pro-grams and approve or deny them. They could choosethe lead agencies that would provide youth develop-ment activities. They could be involved in key staffdecisions. In sum, the cities had high expectations andgreat enthusiasm for school-level community councilsat the beginning of the ESS initiative:

In theory they should operate with theCBOs to approve programming plansdeveloped by the CBOs. The CBOs shouldfirst go to them for program ideas.

Fiscal Agency Staff

In keeping with the community-building agenda thatmotivated many of the local initiatives, cities hopedthat the councils would become key partners indecision-making. They hoped that, ultimately, thecouncils would enhance school/community integration.Table 8.2 describes the sites' goals for their school-levelcouncils in the four sites that attempted to implementthem.

68

Table 8.2Proposed Roles of the School-Level Councils

Role Central Falls Denver


Jacksonville

Generate programgoals

Approve programplans

Choose leadagencies

Participate in staffdecisions

V

Savannah

V

V

V

Forming and convening councils proved to be one ofthe most challenging tasks in planning and early imple-mentation. Here we briefly describe the experiences ofthe four cities that planned to hand some decision-mak-ing power over to school-level councils.

Forming School-Level Councils. The cities took twoapproaches to forming school-level councils for theESS initiative: using pre-existing school managementteams or creating teams from scratch. In two citiesCentral Falls and Jacksonvilleplanning committeestaff decided that it would be convenient to use schoolmanagement teams already in place. In its efforts toincrease accountability for educational performance,the state of Rhode Island law mandates that schoolimprovement teams (SITs) meet to discuss issues suchas the school curriculum. Florida's teams have a some-what different agenda, since they arc mandated by thestate to manage the full-service schools portion ofevery school. As a result of their different functions,the composition of the school level councils differ inJacksonville and Central Falls. Prior to implementationof the ESS initiative, the teams in Central Falls con-sisted primarily of teachers and school administrators.In Florida, in contrast, the teams consisted of schoolpersonnel and agencies that provide services in theschool.

In two other citiesDcnvcr and SavannahbothBeacons Adaptations, the school-level councils wereformed by key planning team partners. In Denver,they organized presentations at community events andwent door-to-door to find people who were interested.In Savannah, the planning team, which had extensiveexperience in community organizing by virtue of its

experience in other community initiatives, hired com-munity organizers in each of the three communitiesserved by the selected schools. The organizers attendedPTA and neighborhood association meetings, identi-fied residents who were already involved in civic activi-ties or those who expressed strong interest, and formedschool-level councils. The groups also included teach-ers at the schools. In contrast to the school-level coun-cils in Jacksonville and Central Falls, the councils inDenver and Savannah included more neighborhoodresidents and community activists. Neither approach,however, appeared better at attracting parents. Identi-fying and recruiting concerned parents proved as chal-lenging in Denver and Savannah as in Jacksonville andCentral Falls.

In three of the cities, the councils were very active earlyin implementation. In Denver, Savannah and Jackson-ville, the school-level councils chose the community-based organizations charged with operating youth andadult after-school programs. The process by whicheach city did so differed somewhat. In Jacksonville, theFull-Service School teams formed a subcommittee thatchose the CBO that managed after-school youth devel-opment activities at all five schools involved in the city'sESS initiative. In Denver, the planning committeevetted the list of organizations that applied to be leadagencies before passing them on to the school-levelcouncils for final selection. The school-level councils,therefore, were presented only with proposals that hadbeen reviewed by school district personnel and all theother oversight committee members. By all reports,the process in each city wasif not problem-freesatisfying to most.


The excitement turned to frustration, however, as ten-sions emerged between school-level councils, planningteams and lead agencies. The processes we observed ineach of the cities were typical of those observed in ini-tiatives in which resident involvement is externally im-posed instead of emerging from community concerns.'Lack of consensus and clarity over roles and responsi-bilities over the first year led to tensions betweengroups of stakeholders, which resulted in precipitousdeclines in attendance at meetings in both Denver andSavannah. In Central Falls, where the SchoolImprovement Teams (SITs) had functions that wentwell beyond the ESS Initiative, SITs rarely addressedESS programs or concerns. Because of SITs' full agen-das and school-year schedule, planning team membersconsidered the SITs ill-prepared to function asdecision-makers for the initiative. Examining whathappened in these cities highlights how expectationsand lines of accountability became entangled.

As implementation of the ESS programs got underway at the schools, events in two schools suggest thatit may be crucial for councils to have ongoing andactive support from the planning or oversight commit-tee in mediating disputes between councils and leadagencies. In one school, the coordinator hired to runthe program was very responsive to the council'srequests, but did not follow guidelines set by the leadagency. Without consulting the council, the leadagency fired her. Ultimately, the agency's decision ledto so much conflict that the agency agreed to stepaside. In that case, the council prevailed. In anotherschool, the council was dissatisfied with the perfor-mance of the coordinator who had been hired by thelead agency without consulting the council. Compli-cating matters were some racial concerns, since an in-creasing number of Latino residents was moving intothe community, which had long been populated byAfrican Americans. The lead agency primarily servedthe African American community, and the school-levelcouncil believed that the agency was not responsive tothe Latino community. In that particular school, thecoordinator was fired, and the council and lead agencycompromised by having council members sit on theselection committee to hire a new coordinator. Twocoordinators were ultimately hiredone was the leadagency's choice, the other was the council's choice. Inboth schools, key members of the planning teamstepped forward to mediate the disputes and supportthe councils' authority.

Over the course of the first year of implementation, theauthority of the school-level councils was called intoquestion. When researchers visited the cities in the falland winter of the first implementation year, the coun-cils were still very much on people's minds as theyspoke about governance, although even then it wasclear that there were challenges in convening the coun-cils. In one city, school coordinators informed theoversight committee that they wanted technical assis-tance in working with the school-level councils. By thesummer, attention had turned away from the school-level councils, and oversight committee members didnot know how effectively the councils were operating.Coordinators and council members at schools werevague in their responses to questions about how oftenthe councils met. Across the cities, program decisionsrelating to activity choices, scheduling and staff werebeing made primarily by coordinators. At the end ofthe first full year of implementation, when asked in theorganizational survey who would hold the ultimateauthority if an "unresolvable issue concerning ESSwere to arise," only four school coordinators includedthe school-level councils in their responses. Typically,coordinators reported that the organization controllingthe funds or the oversight committees had ultimateauthority. Council members reported that many mem-bers were no longer coming to meetings and that meet-ings were held infrequently. There was little questionthat ESS staff and their lead agencies were makingdecisions about programming.

Why it is so difficult to convene school-level councilsfor ESS. Across the cities, planning team members,coordinators and council members have a number ofexplanations for why it was so difficult to convene andsupport effective school-level councils. In a city wherethe school-level councils also oversaw school-day deci-sions, the councils' agendas were full and they lackedthe time to oversee after-school activities. In addition,they did not meet during the summer, a prime time toplan fall activities. In one city, stakeholders suggested arange of explanations: the lead agencies lacked experi-ence working with community councils and/or mightnot want to convene councils in communities in whichthey have poor relations; the local intermediary lackedadequate time to train the councils and clarify theirroles; political infighting was par for the course in thelocal community; or the community had a history ofnoninvolvement.

70

Jacksonville: A Case of Successful SharedDecision-Making

Although the city did not avoid the tensions andconflicts we have described, Jacksonville was the onlycity that continued to actively use school-level councils.In Jacksonville, it is important to note, the councilswere largely made up of community-based organizationstaff who were involved in the full-service schools.Thus, they had been managing activities at schoolswith a similarly complex collaborative structure.Although the councils had struggled with the tensionsthat those in other cities had, two factors appear tohave allowed Jacksonville to overcome some of itsdifficulties. First, all services that come into theschools must be approved by the councils. Thecouncils also have the authority to reallocate fundingfrom one program to another. Their authority,therefore, arises from their role, and is not derived fromthe authority of the planning teams. Second, an overallculture of collaboration exists within the social servicecommunity in Jacksonville, which pre-disposed manystakeholders to work out their difficulties.

While all these explanations probably account for someof the difficulties, underlying organizational issuesappear to have curtailed the development of school-level councils. In particular, the development of coun-cils was ceded to the lead agencies; but as we have indi-cated, the lead agencies did not originally convene thegroups. It was the planning teams that gave the coun-cils power. Councils also had little control over fund-ing. Their authority was further weakened by the factthat the staff who were on the lead agency's payroll tocoordinate programs at the schools were responsiblefor convening meetings of the councils. As programimplementation got off the ground and authoritymoved from the planning committees to the CBOs andschool-level councils, the importance of the councilsdiminished. Lead agencies did not necessarily share theplanning teams' fervent belief that school-level councilswere an integral part of successful implementation.

Furthermore, formal agreements that articulated rolesand responsibilities between the school-level councilsand the lead agencies do not exist. If the lead agencydoes not follow the directions of the school-level coun-cil, the council has little strength to pressure it to do so.Contractual agreements are between the CBOs manag-ing the programs and the fiscal agencies, not with theschool-level councils. The school coordinators usuallyfeel accountable to their lead agencies, which controlthe funds for the school programs. The community-


based agencies, in turn, are ultimately accountable tothe fiscal agencies. While the intention to includeschool-level councils in the initiative was real, structuralsupport was not provided.

Moving to Alternative Management StructuresGiven their difficulties in convening effective school-level councils, most schools in Denver, Savannahand Central Falls shifted their management strategieswithin the first year of implementation. In two cities,the school coordinators at the schools decided thatthe councils would probably be more effective as advi-sory councils. School coordinators and lead agencypersonnel were increasingly making the decisions inboth cities.

The third city, Central Falls, moved to a more collabo-rative decision-making structure as the oversightcommitteecomposed of partners from the schools,the United Way, community-based organizations, anda few parents and business peopletook over decision-making for the after-school programs. Within theoversight committee, staff from key institutionstheschools and the United Wayseem to have been pri-marily responsible for decisions. Thus, the governancestructure within the city began to look much like thesmall team structure typical of cities where only a singleschool is involved in the Adaptation. Table 8.3describes the patterns of school-level management asthe first year of implementation ended. It is importantto emphasize that in several cases the local initiativesperceived their new strategies to be temporary. Central

Table 8.3School-level Governance Structure at the End ofthe First Year of Implementation

Key partnersoverseeactivities atschools

Lead agencystaff shareoversight withschool-levelcouncils

CBO/UnitedWay provideoversight

Atlanta

Aurora

Boston

Central Falls

Long Beach

Jacksonville Minneapolis

Missoula

Denver

Savannah


Falls, for example, hoped an intensified effort to incor-porate the school councils into the initiative would payoff. Long Beach, which had considerable success orga-nizing community residents and parents to get involvedin activities in the school, hoped that its efforts wouldeventually lead to increased community involvement indecision-making.

The City-wide Oversight CommitteesIn cities with multiple schools, the need to oversee pro-grams across schools as well as within each school'sprogram, becomes an issue. Therefore, early in imple-mentation, oversight committees were created in fourof the six multiple-school cities we visited: CentralFalls, Denver, Minneapolis and Missoula. Typically,oversight committees consisted of administrators fromlocal school districts, executive staff from lead agencies(in the Beacons) and other CBOs, the organization thatserved as the fiscal agent of the grant(s), the local inter-mediary (if there was one) and the United Way. Inaddition, in the models that included universities as keymembers, university staff were oversight committeemembers. Officials from local governments sat on thecommittees in four of the five cities. In three cities,residents and local business people also joined. Theoversight committees ranged in size from 6 to 32members.

All oversight committees have two core responsibili-ties: setting basic operating policies across the schoolsin each community and working toward sustaining theinitiative at a city-wide level. In addition, most com-mittees do trouble-shooting when problems arise at theschool level, but the extent to which they oversee pro-grams at the schools varies.

Setting Policies and Approving BudgetsOne role of the oversight committees is to set policiesand approve budgets for the school-based programs.To date, the policy-setting function has been relativelylimited. As we noted in the previous chapter, earlynegotiations among key partners in some cities allowedthe work to go forward during planning. However,Jacksonville, a city that did not form an oversightcommittee at the beginning of the initiative, decidedto form one during the first year of implementationwhen it became obvious that some partners weredispleased about having different personnel policiesacross the schools. The oversight committee was

formed to set policy for the five schools involved inthe initiative and to review budgets from each school.The city's experience, therefore, suggests that policyconsistency across schools can be an outgrowth of anoversight committee.

Early Efforts Toward SustainabilityAt the end of the first year of implementation, thework of sustaining the initiative was in its early devel-opment across the sites, and thus we expect that wewill have more to report in the future. Nonetheless,the importance of the oversight committees in findingfuture funds bears commenting on. The use of publicfunds for extensive after-school efforts is in its infancy,and the cities involved in ESS are on the cutting edgeof the after-school movement. Thus, the ESS cities areinvolved not only in identifying possible sources ofpublic funds, but also in generating public interest andconcern about after-school funds.

One advantage of having an oversight committee isthat it often includes committed executives who makethe time to lead and carry out efforts to identify poten-tial sources of public funds and generate enthusiasmamong politicians and government officials. Schoolcoordinators do not have the time to spend meetingwith all the individuals needed to ensure a program'ssustainability. Key oversight committee membersinvolved in public fundraising efforts spend largeamounts of time on these tasks, far more than they hadexpected. In Minneapolis, an effort to acquire statefunding for after-school programs entailed visits toapproximately 100 legislators and key executives instate government, including the commissioners ofHealth and Welfare, Corrections, and Family, Childrenand Learning.

The Trouble-Shooting RoleOne of the roles that several oversight committees havetaken in the first year is that of trouble-shooting whenchallenges arise, and mediating conflicts at the schoollevel. This is particularly effective if the oversight com-mittee membership includes senior school district staffalong with senior CBO staff with sufficient influenceand authority to intervene. Senior school district staffmay, to some degree, encourage principal supportwhen it lags. They can also explain the culture of thelocal school district to oversight committee membersfrom CBOs or funding organizations. CBO staff and

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Denver: Plans for Sustainability

In Denver, the oversight committee identified severalkey challenges to continuing Beacons funding. First,as in so many cities, the school district's mission israising educational standards, and there is no fundingavailable for the kinds of enrichment activity that theBeacons provide. Second, the city of Denver has arelatively young and small philanthropic base, andoversight committee members do not think there aresufficient private monies to fund the initiative long-term.Third, state funds for youth development activities arelimited (as they are in so many states). Fourth, theBeacons in Denver need an institution that can act asthe fiscal agent over the long term. The foundation thatis currently filling the role is doing so temporarily.

The oversight committee has thus been consideringcreating a Board of Cooperative Educational Services[BOCES], which is often a partnership among a numberof school districts that pool resources. In Denver, theBOCES would be a partnership between a universityand Denver Public Schools (DPS) to govern allDenver's community/school projectsBeacons, 2151Century Learning Centers and neighborhood centers.Its advantages would be a primary concern with after-school activities and eligibility for funds that may not beavailable to another entity. For example, federal 2151CCLC funds must go to educational entities, but otherfunds may be limited to other kinds of agencies. ABOCES would allow the Denver Beacons to apply tomultiple funding streams and funnel the funds of eachto single entities.

funders can, in turn, put pressure on after- school pro-gram staff and their own organizations to negotiatewith school-level councils or school staff

In the first year, oversight committees found them-selves stepping in to mediate conflicts over somecontentious staffing decisions at the school level. Inseveral schools, the school-level councils and the CBOsrunning the programs did not agree on the responsibil-ities or the performance of coordinators. The oversightcommittees mediated and helped identify solutions.Their role was important in facilitating management atthe schools.

The Challenge of Decision-MakingSites with oversight committees reported that a majorchallenge is deciding what the decision-making role ofthe committee is. In large (over 10 members) over-sight committees with broad community representa-tion, decision-making within the whole committee isdifficult. The committees are not structured like typical


governance boards of organizations. They do not havevoting and nonvoting members, nor specific areas ofauthority over the organizations to which they provideadvice and council. Instead, they are somewherebetween advisory groups and decision-making groups.Staff from the ESS fiscal agencies, the school districtsand local funders typically sit on the committees, andtheir opinions tend to carry more weight than do thoseof residents or other organizations. In one city, a staffperson from a CBO involved in the initiative not in akey decision-making role noted:

I think they're feel-good meetings with ashow and tell... We don't tackle problemsor deal with sustainability issues...Theagenda is set by a power structure outsideof that committee.

An executive of a fiscal agency in another city said:

The oversight committee has some indi-viduals that disagree with everything,and so sometimes we'll say [to each other],"don't take that to the full oversight com-mittee because they won't accept it." Sowhat's interesting is the times and placeswe believe in democracy and the times wedon't.

To some degree, the challenges to the oversight com-mittees are due to lack of clarity about their realauthority. In all sites, it is the fiscal agencies that areultimately accountable for meeting the grant require-ments and they often push the agenda along. Typi-cally, school district personnel are also key members ofthe decision-making structure, since without strongschool district support the local initiatives could notoperate. What we often observed was that a smallgroup of executives makes decisions and the commit-tees agree to them. One committee member from anorganization that does not have key decision-makingauthority related how she had responded to a retreatplanned by the oversight committee:

Someone gave the fiscal agency somemoney and said it should go to youth. Sothey said, "Let's do a youth retreat." Wewere just starting up. So [we had to]close down the program and go out intothe country for three days. I don't think


anybody felt like they had input into theretreat. That's not the timing we wouldhave chosen.

It appeared to us that the lack of role clarity is the basicproblem, not the fact that decisions are made by a smallnumber of individuals. People complained that theywere told that they would have input into decisions,then found that they did not. This is a particular prob-lem for executive staff from CBOs that provide activi-ties in the after-school programs.

ConclusionThe transition from planning to implementation waschallenging in many of the sites. Shifts in decision-making and management authority from the planningteam to school-level governance structures and CBOswere particularly difficult. In general, two major fac-tors contributed to the challenges of transferringauthority: first, some of the school-level governancestructures were unprepared to take on key decision-making tasks surrounding the ESS program at theirschool; and second, local governance teams and agencypersonnel who coordinated the ESS programs some-times lacked clarity about their respective roles andresponsibilities.

There arc ways to establish after-school programsother than convening a group of administrators andexecutives from a range of organizations and creatingseveral loci of authority. One could, for example, grantmoney to a well-established voluntary youth-servingorganization that runs a number of programs (such asa YMCA) to oversee programs across a number ofschools. One could also provide funds to schoolsthemselves to administer (as the Department of Educa-tion does with its 21" Century Community LearningCenter grants). One advantage of the former could bethat planning and start-up periods are minimized,whereas an advantage of the latter is that school sup-port and resources are likely to be more easily enlisted.Both also have potential disadvantages. Programsestablished by local youth-serving organizations maynot interact effectively with school-day personnel.School-administered programs, on the other hand,might be limited in program content or "feel likeschool" to participating youth.

It is important to ask whether the multi-organizationalstructures of the local ESS initiatives had benefits that

outweighed the costs. Although this report is based ononly one year of implementation, and we are not yetprepared to address the question fully, the early infor-mation suggests that the complex structures had bothadvantages and disadvantages. In general, it appearsthat all the adaptation cities figured out ways to forgecollaborations between schools and CBOs that weremutually beneficial.

All cities had to figure out how to manage activities atthe school. They all hired school coordinators who hada wide range of day-to-day management responsibili-ties. School coordinators reported to one of threeschool-level governance structures that oversaw theprogram at the school and made key decisions. Somecities implemented school-level councils that shareddecision-making with the lead agencies. In others, asmall team of three to five key stakeholders, includingthe school's principal, oversaw the coordinator's work.In the rest, the lead agency oversaw the work.

Cities chose shared decision-making by a council and alead agency because they hoped to increase the commu-nity's involvement in, and commitment to, both theESS programs and the schools. In general, the coun-cil/lead agency configuration was effective in generat-ing community interest in the initiative, especially in itsearly stages. On the other hand, the configurationproved difficult to sustain as the initiative progressed,and almost all the schools with this governance struc-ture shifted to more heavy reliance on lead agency staffby the end of the first year of implementation.

In contrast, having lead agencies (as in the Beacon andBridges cities) and small teams (as in one Bridges city,the Community Schools cities and the WEPIC cities)govern the programs proved to be effective fordecision-making at the school level. Cities that had asingle school involved in ESS used small teams to gov-ern the local initiative. Unlike relations between leadagencies and school-level councils, the small gover-nance teams tended to have relatively harmonious rela-tionships. They also appeared to be effective in plan-ning and implementing activities. Further, theyincluded the principal in a close relationship with otherpartners and, as we discussed in Chapter V, havingprincipal support is important for gaining the supportof other school personnel. Both lead agency and smallteam governance, however, face potential barriers inworking to sustain programs over the long term. The

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members of small teams may lack experience in identi-fying and garnering public funds or the time to do so.For lead agencies, the challenge was somewhat differ-ent. In many, the ESS program was often one of manythat the agency was implementing. As a result, the ESSprogram was competing for the lead agency'sresourcesboth human and financial.

When cities had multiple schools involved in theirlocal initiative, establishing oversight committees per-mitted them to more easily coordinate policies and ac-tivities across the schools. Because the cities with mul-tiple ESS schools are the Bridges to Success and theBeacon models, oversight committees appeared only inthose two model adaptations. The oversight commit-tees arc composed of executive and administrative stafffrom funding agencies, school districts, governmentagencies and CBOs. Having senior staff sit on thecommittees enhances the group's abilities to trouble-shoot problems at the schools. It also proves useful inthinking about sustaining the initiative since the staffon the committees often has had experience in identify-ing funds.

To date, it appears that the various organizationalstructures do offer important advantages to the initia-tive. Small team governance, where principals areincluded on the team, strengthens school participationin the local initiative, which may serve to create andsustain strongly integrated school/community partner-ships. Oversight committees provide importanthuman resources to the initiative; to date, the commit-tees have found solutions to specific problems in theschool programs. Perhaps more importantly, in think-ing about how to sustain their work, the oversightcommittees are considering how to access public fund-ing. Identifying and getting public funds is an ambi-tious undertaking, and the oversight committees aremore likely to have the resources to commit than areother groups.

The Funds anticipated the challenge and therefore con-tracted with the Finance Project, a national organiza-tion with expertise in financing supports and servicesfor children, youth and families. The role of theFinance Project is to build capacity and knowledge inthe field around funding after-school programs and toprovide technical assistance to sites to develop strate-gies for future funding. A key challenge for the citieswill be to sustain their local initiative beyond the grantperiod. The evaluation's final report will examine the


cities' strategies and experiences in sustainability. Indoing so, it will describe if and how different gover-nance structures affected strategies for, and success in,sustaining the local initiatives.

Summary and Conclusions 75

IX. Summary and ConcOusions Keeping schools open longer and expanding the uses ofbuildings makes sense. Transforming school facilitiesinto youth and community centers expands the publicbenefit derived from investment in these public build-ings. The potential benefits are especially great for chil-dren and youth. Before- and after-school programsprovide young people with opportunities to developthe skills, roles and relationships essential to their ulti-mate success, as well as shelter them during a time ofvulnerability. As a result, many of the newly emergingafter-school programs are in schools.

Locating such programs in schools is particularly sensi-ble in low-income communities because there are fewother available resources that children and their parentscan use for educational and recreational purposes. TheESS Initiative, which funds close to 60 programs, wasdesigned to explore how school-based programs couldbe implemented in low-income neighborhoods, whowould be served and how. The initiative encompassesa wide variety of after-school programs adapting to awide variety of poor urban environments. By examin-ing the experiences of these diverse programs, the eval-uation aimed to learn about the issues involved in pro-viding children and youth with enriching opportunitiesin a school setting outside traditional school hours.

Approximately one year after the programs had begunoperating, we found that thousands of low-incomechildren across ESS's 17 cities had enrolled in the pro-grams, which offer participants a wide range ofactivitiesacademic, enrichment, athletic, creative andcultural. During the school year, stress is placed onacademics, with approximately 40 percent of activityhours devoted to skill-building and academic enrich-ment; during the summer, offerings are more evenlydistributed.

The Adaptation ProcessThe ESS initiative involves four distinct programmodels, each with its own program philosophy andunderlying beliefs about how youth best develop. Allfour models reflect the public's deep concern aboutacademic achievement. The evaluation has allowed usto observe how cities modify the basic model programsto fit their particular social, cultural and political con-texts. We expected these adaptations to take a numberof forms. They could, for example, lead to modifica-tions in governance structures or in the roles of school

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personnel, or to adjustments in programmatic empha-ses in order to target a specific community issue.

Over the first year of operation, we observed that,along some dimensions, programs adapting differentmodels tended to be similar. First, all the programsput similar and heavy emphasis during the school yearon academics and other enrichment opportunities butlightened those emphases during the summer. Second,school-level governance structures seem to have con-verged somewhat: over time, multiple-school cities alldeveloped city-level oversight committees and began torest management authority more with the lead agenciesrather than with school-level councils. Third, a corestaffing pattern seems to be emerging. All the pro-grams came to sec the need for a full-time school coor-dinator. For the programs operating before and dur-ing school, most also have gravitated towards hiring anassistant. Thus, it appears that the core demands ofoperating an ESS program are leading most of theadaptation programs to similar types of programming,staffing and governance, at least in the early stage ofoperations.

Model differences, however, still remain. The Beaconphilosophy of developing the whole child distributes itsprogramming across developmental areas sufferingmore cultural and athletic activities. Consistent with itsgoal of creating seamless school and nonschoolenvironments, Community School adaptations areviewed by principals as a more integral part of theschool than is true in the other programs. The UnitedWay, national and local, brought to the Bridges cities agreater stress on partnership and consensus. Relativeto their funding levels, they are able to bring more out-side providers into the school than are other models.Though many of the WEPIC adaptation cities had notyet become fully operational, these programs seem tostress community service to a much greater degree thando the other models.

It will be interesting over the next year or two toobserve whether the adaptation programs continueto converge. The models' convergence may be a short-term effect of getting the programs off the ground.As the programs mature, model difference may assertthemselves more strongly. It will also be interestingto see whether there are variations across modelswith respect to youth experiences. Answers to bothquestions will help locales that are thinking about


implementing similar after-school programs choose amodel. If, ultimately, the programs converge until theyappear interchangeable on key dimensions such as col-laborations with schools, programming, youth recruit-ment and sustainability, then it may not matter whichmodel a community begins with. If, on the otherhand, one model is more successful than another inachieving specific goals, then communities may want tochoose a model that complements the community'sgoals for the program. One obvious example of thiswould be that the oversight committee structures ofthe Bridges to Success or Beacon models appear to beparticularly fitting when communities want to involvemultiple schools and need to consider how they will setpolicies that will be applied across schools. Similarly, iflocal stakeholders have strong school support for a pro-gram that entails close partnership between schools andCBOs and hope to integrate school and out-of-schoolactivities, then a Community School model may bedesirable. In cities where trust between CBOs andschools is low, then the Community School model mayprove very challenging to implement.

Using Schools as the Venue forAfter-school ProgramsLocation in the school building provides a programwith several important advantages. First, the facilitiesare appropriate for a wide range of activities. Gyms,libraries, auditoriums and computer labs all provideunique equipment and space difficult to find elsewhere.Second, the school provides coordinators with readyaccess to potential participants, namely the studentbody. Third, the school offers the program legitimacy;parents might hesitate to allow their children to partici-pate in programs elsewhere.

But using schools as a venue for after-school programsis not as easy as it would appearand for several con-crete reasons. First, the current notion that schoolbuildings are underused resources, open for only six orseven hours during the school day and not at all in thesummer, is too simplistic. We observed that at leastsome parts of the schools are often heavily used afterhours: teachers prepare for their next day's classes andprovide extra help to selected students; students use thelibraries and computer labs to complete their assign-ments; sport teams practice; outside organizationssuch as Scouts or private day-care providersuse thefacilities. Even in the summers, the buildings are used,primarily for summer school programs that have


become much more prevalent in reaction to the currentmovement to improve academic achievement. Theresult is that ESS programs often have to compete forprime space, such as the gym or computer labs.

Second, limited resources for maintaining the school'sphysical facilities and equipment also lead administra-tors to limit the building's use. Anything depreciateswith usecars, equipment, schools. For the most part,coordinators are able to keep the rate of facility deterio-ration down to the usual school-day strain, but whenfacilities and equipment are used, they wear out andbreak. Given the tight budgets that the principals inthis study operate under, it is not surprising that thereis tension between schools and ESS coordinatorsaround the use of the building, student behavior andcustodial issues. Breakage means that school-day stu-dents, as well as after-school participants, have to dowith less. Having to buy or repair a computer meansthat some other purchase has to be foregone. Tensionsare often perceived by program staff as created byschool distrust of the program, but our investigationreveals that the fundamental issue is not one of turf orcontrol, but of resources. More public funds areneeded to maintain school facilities if they are to beopen for longer hours and used more intensively. Turfand control issues do arise, but can be resolved overtime as trust builds; the resource issue will not go awaywithout the public's greater awareness and support.

Third, using schools as the venue for after-school pro-grams accentuates the challenge of transportation andincreases program cost. Although more cities acrossAmerica are turning their elementary and middleschools back into neighborhood schools as efforts tointegrate urban schools through busing are abandoned,a significant number of youth in the ESS cities are stillbused to and from their schools. Busing was used notonly for integration but also to bring children to schoolbuildings in neighborhoods where few live. Many ofthe coordinators with whom we spoke expressed bothfrustration with the difficulties of recruiting bused stu-dents to the program, getting youth home from after-school activities and arranging transportation for fieldtrips. If schools provide busing for students who stayafter hours for sports, the after-school program has toschedule activities to coordinate with the late bus'sschedule. In schools that do not have late buses, theprograms can serve only youth who live within walkingdistance or whose parents can pick them up. Relying

on parentally provided transportation is a serious bar-rier for the most economically disadvantaged youth,whose parents do not have cars or who work secondshift jobs.

As cities think about how to implement school-basedafter-school programs, the implications of varioustransportation options need to be weighed. Buses cantransport youth from the after-school program to theirhomes; or the school-based after-school programs canact like a neighborhood center and recruit only neigh-borhood youth, including those who do not attend thegiven school. The two options have both advantagesand disadvantages. Recruiting is easier if the targetpopulation goes to the school in which the program isheld. Parents and children are familiar and comfortablewith the building, and recruitment can be done duringthe school day. But paying for transportation is expen-sive. Even if resources (in kind or financial) exist topay for transportation, the program's costs rise. To bea prudent investment, then, the benefits of the programneed to be greater if they are to outweigh the truecosts. On the other hand, programs targeting onlyneighborhood youth significantly diminish transporta-tion problems and the cost of the program, but schoolpersonnel are less likely to be as supportive; weobserved that both teachers and principals are mostinvested in meeting their students' needs. Also,neighborhood-based programs are likely to have diffi-culty recruiting children who do not go to the school.There also may be tension between the two groups ofyouth.

Fourth, preliminary data suggest that while the pro-grams reach thousands of children who live in very dis-advantaged circumstances, effort is needed to draw themost disadvantaged students into school-based after-school programs. School coordinators indicated thattheir programs are less successful recruiting childrenwho are behind in school, poor menders, pronetoward detention, lacking support at home, and fromnon-English-speaking and poor families. Transporta-tion, the difficulty of contacting parents and the stu-dents' own dislike of school are barriers the programsneed to address.

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Realistic Expectations for After-schoolProgramsAlthough we did not formally consider the impact ofthe programs on the lives of their participants (subse-quent work will examine youth's experiences in thcpro-grams), the information gathered for this report en-ables us to speculate on the types of impact after-schoolprograms similar to ESS will have. As often happenswith promising, new interventions, people have veryhigh and broad aspirations for after-school programs.Some hope that they will keep children safe and pro-vide them with basic skills they will need to succeed inschool and as adultssuch as social competence, angermanagement, persistence, responsibility, leadership,entrepreneurship and civic engagement. Still othershope they will reduce neighborhood crime and increaseschools' and children's ability to achieve higher aca-demic standards.

Academic activities are a substantial part of all the pro-grams, regardless of which model is being adapted.The relative importance of academics in these after-school programs is very much in line with the tremen-dous stress being placed on increased standards andstudent performance across the country. The ESS pro-grams provide both academic support (homeworkhelp, tutoring and enrichment classes) and non-academic activities. Both types of activity have poten-tial to improve student performance: academic supportdirectly expands children's learning opportunities,while nonacademic activities help meet some of theirother needs, enabling them to be more attentive learn-ers during the school day.

Yet, obtaining academic impacts will be an uphill battlefor the programs. First, many have opted to servemore children less intensively (programming one ortwo days a week for each age group) rather than fewerchildren more intensively (three to five days a week).Second, mobility is quite high in these low-incomeneighborhoods and many of the enrollees leave theprogram too soon to benefit. Third, even if the pro-gram does intensively serve its participants, it isunlikely that, at their current levels of funding, they willincrease a school's test scores dramatically; the propor-tion of students in a school who attend these programsis now relatively small. Performance could improve forindividual participants who come frequently, but thismay not help the principal whose job depends on theschool's aggregate performance. However, if academic


impacts can be demonstrated at least among those whoattend, additional funding may be forthcoming,enabling the programs to expand and serve more chil-dren and youth more intensively.

Similarly, ESS's effect on crime, though likely positive,is not likely to live up to advocates' dreams. Most juve-nile crime is committed by older youth, who, as wesaw, are less likely to attend after-school programs.Second, the youth who are most likely committingcrimes are not staying after school to attend theseprograms. School coordinators consistently reportedthat they were not reaching the most at-risk students.While part of the low turnout among higher-risk youthmay be attributable to school location, more funda-mentally, youth's participation in most forms of orga-nized activity decreases as they age. Thus, more seriouscrime is unlikely to decrease significantly as a result ofESS-like after-school programs. Delinquency and van-dalism, however, may decline because they are perpe-trated by younger children. In fact, several principalsmentioned lower rates of vandalism since their ESSprogram had begun. In addition, by providing thechildren with a supervised after-school environment,rates of youth victimization may also drop.

The after-school programs we observed did activelyattract and engage thousands of children and youthwho have few other positive options for filling theirafter-school time. Our next report will examine morespecifically students' participation patterns and theirexperiences in programs. So far, we have observed stu-dents engaged in a wide variety of activitiesart andscience classes, tae -bo, basketball, leadership training,career awareness activities, community service, behav:for and etiquette classes. The students we spoke withenjoy the programs and are often quite attached tostaff. Thus, we speculate that programs are providingfrequent participants with meaningful adult relation-ships, opportunities to interact with their peers, andthe chance to learn new skills and refine old ones. Inthe next report, we will try to measure these benefits.


ConclusionsSchool-based after-school programs are promisingstrategies for engaging youth and children in a varietyof positive social, recreational and academic activities.Policymakers and funders, however, must balanceoptimism about their potential with some degree ofcaution. The programs face very real challenges infinding adequate resourcesespecially the spaceneeded to house them and the transportation neededby participants.

Expectations for the programs should also be temperedby grounded knowledge about what youth programscan and cannot achieve. Although there is relativelylittle information available to date about the effects ofschool-based after-school programs, research on effec-tive youth activities tells us what effects can be achievedand under what circumstances. We can thereforeexpect that well-run after-school programs can have apositive impact on youth's lives by giving youth moreopportunities to socialize with peers in a safe setting,form relationships with nonparental adults, and engagein interesting and new activities. If expectations aretoo high, however, then the inability of the programsto reach them could undermine the public's support forprograms that achieve significant goals.

We have long known that children and youth need tohave access to developmental opportunities over thecourse of their childhood and adolescence. Ongoingsupport makes a difference. Because schools are inher-ently developmental, they meet children and youthwhere they are and, through a series of increasinglychallenging activities, encourage young people to reachhigher levels of achievement. Locating after-schoolprograms in schools may encourage youth programs toemphasize the importance of stretching youth. Youthdevelopment programs in schools may also have animpact on schools and their staff. They may facilitateschool staff's ability to see other dimensions of and tal-ents in students. They may also enhance the academiccurriculum with other developmental opportunitiesthat teachers may lack the time to provide.

Preview of the FutureThe purpose of this report has been to provide the fieldwith an understanding of the challenges new commu-nity/school initiatives are likely to face during their firstyear and to explore some of the strategies ESS pro-grams use to address them. The report documents

sites' critical use of creativity, patience, careful commu-nication and persistence in the ways they carried outthese strategics. Now entering their third year, ESSprograms are at a new stage of developmenta stagethat reflects the utility of their early strategics and thatis marked by an increasing focus on the issue ofsustainability.

The growing ease and reciprocity in relationshipsshared by schools and ESS program staff surfaces asone of the most prominent developments across sites.In their first year, sites identified ESS-school relation-ships as awkward and stated particular difficulty innegotiating the sharing of school space; the five siteswe visited in our most recent round of interviewsreported significant improvements. Most principalswere pleased with the level of communication they hadwith site directors and youth coordinators, and twosaid that they considered ESS staff to be school staff.As a part of this privileged insider status, ESS staff areinvited to attend and make announcements at all schoolfaculty meetings. ESS staff reported positively on whatthey experienced as a greater feeling of welcome inschools and they persisted in developing improvedways of keeping school staff abreast of their programofferings and programming needs. Two coordinatorswe recently spoke with were posting school-wide emailannouncements and a third coordinator posts a roomsign-up sheet so that teachers may read through her listof room needs for the month and, if willing, volunteertheir classroom space. In one case teachers volunteeredthe use of the teachers' lounge.

Sites present examples of progress in other areas aswell. A middle school program in Minneapolis hasdeveloped a strategy to secure the participation of morehigh-risk youth: rather than recruit youth through afirst -come first-served system that risks including onlyyouth with parents who return forms promptly, thecoordinator keeps enrollment open for two weeks andthen does a random drawing to select participants.

In an effort to meet the challenge of attracting olderyouth participants, the coordinator of a high schoolprogram in Missoula offers what has emerged as a tre-mendously popular ski club. With over 120 partici-pants in this activity alone, the coordinator has beenable to capitalize on the "cool" effect of having a well-known and well-liked activity on which she can buildparticipation in other activities. Missoula is also the


first site to address the challenge of limited transporta-tion options by making arrangements for youth to usepublic city buses. In one of the middle schools, anadult crossing guard is paid to walk groups of youth toa nearby bus stop after school and wait with them untilthe bus arrives.

Parent and community involvement has been anothercommon challenge. To generate participation fromthese groups, a middle school in Aurora, Colorado,plans large family celebration events twice a year. Theevents bring families into the school and honor ESSyouth participants by holding a special dinner, present-ing them with awards and showcasing their new skillsthrough performances and art displays. At their Spring2000 celebration, the site had over 200 people in atten-dance and gave away dozens of donated door prizes'that ranged from a free night's stay at an upscale down-town hotel to haircuts at a local salon.

As sites' accomplishments continue to grow, it is im-portant to recognize that ESS programs are still devel-oping. This means that even once they master a seriesof challenges, more await them. Yet at this early stage,programs display the signs of mature initiatives. Look-ing across the composite of sites for examples, signs ofsuccess include programs with a diverse and regularmenu of activities, a name broadly recognized withinthe school and community, accepted and increasinglyintegrated involvement within schools, expanded andstrengthened partnership networks, effective gover-nance structures with clearly defined and authenticroles, and staffing structures that are comprehensiveenough to meet sites' work demands and stable enoughto weather occasional staff turnover. In our nextreport we will be looking more intensively at the strate-gies programs arc using to address perhaps their mostchallenging goal, achieving sustainability.

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Extended Service Schools: Putting Programming in Place 81

Endnotes

1. The initiative is referred to either as the Extended-Service Schools Adaptation Initiative or just ESS.We will use ESS in this report, but the readershould keep in mind that all the cities are adaptingand modifying the models to their local circum-stances.

2. Implementation funding was available as of Janu-ary 1998. However, most programs did notbegin fully operating until Fall 1998.

3. In a survey of school coordinators, the researchersrequested information about pre-existing pro-grams within the schools; but because the coordi-nators were hired for the Adaptation, their knowl-edge of pre-existing programs was sometimes lim-ited. We also requested such information fromprincipals, but since so many were new, theirknowledge was limited as well.

4. The purpose of our observations was to pilot anassessment form that we plan to use later in theresearch and thus we selected half the sites toobserve activities.

5. All names are pseudonyms.

6. Five citiesBoston, Central Falls, Rhode Island,Minneapolis and Savannahwere chosen to par-ticipate in the most intensive research activities,including the cost, youth participation and youthexperience studies. A sixth city, Aurora, Colo-rado, joined the cohort in late 1999 but had notyet begun the process of collecting data from par-ticipants for the research.

7. Because these five cities are part of the participa-tion and youth experience studies, parents ofenrollees fill out a short intake form to provide aswith more information on the children.

8. Quoted in Combining Service and Learning: AResource Book for Community and Public Service,Volume II, Jane C. Kendall and Associates (ed.).National Society for Internships and ExperientialEducation: Raleigh, N.C., 1990, p.425.

9. Issue Brief Schools Serving Family Needs:Extended-day Programs in Public and PrivateSchools. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department ofEducation, National Center for EducationStatistics, February 1997.

10. One factor pushing principals to value activitiesthat are not academically oriented is the pressureon principals to increase the academic content ofthe school day to the exclusion of enrichmentactivities such as the visual and performing arts.This is a particularly acute problem in Minneapolisbecause the state of Minnesota has mandated thatschools address youth's other developmentalneeds in addition to their academic needs. At thesame time, Minneapolis Public Schools hadincreased academic performance standards. Someprincipals find themselves caught in a bind: reduc-ing enrichment activities means they are notaddressing the state's youth development man-date, but not reducing them means they cannotallocate more time to academics.

11. The remaining motivations came primarily fromgrant writers or consultants who were paid to beinvolved.

12. Community Education staff did not necessarilyagree with this perspective. Some staff memberstold us that Community Education was doingyouth development prior to the Beacon Initiative,but they had been doing so through specific pro-grams instead of through an active community/school partnership. Others told us that Commu-nity Education was doing exactly what theBeacons hoped to do, but the ESS initiativebrought greater resources to its efforts.

13. The WEPIC grants were structured differentlyfrom the grants provided to the other models.WEPIC cities did not receive a planning grant,and thus we visited Atlanta at an earlier stage in itsdevelopment than we visited other cities.


14. The proportion of high school students eligiblefor free and reduced lunch is significantly lower inthe communities, probably because high schoolstend to be larger and more economically diversethan are elementary or middle schools.

15. See Walker et al. (1999) for a description of thedevelopmental phases of resident councils in exter-nally organized community initiatives.

84


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