Prior to state receivership, the Holyoke Public Schools (HPS)
implemented a large number of programs and worked with an assortment of
contracted consultants and organizations on school turnaround efforts. Commissioner Chester provided the most recent
brief summary in December of 2014, listing America’s Choice and the District
Management Council as the most recent partners, each with particular focus and
approach (http://www.doe.mass.edu/boe/docs/2015-03/item7-Timeline.pdf). We agree with the assessment that these
programs and partners did not produce the intended results, even if these
results were narrowly defined as improved standardized scores. Significantly, teachers have been overwhelmed
by the quick switches from one program and one partner to the next. Teachers
have not been meaningfully consulted about the various approaches based on our
expertise and knowledge of our students.
These new initiatives have garnered additional resources, often without
a public accounting, and a general lack of rigorous outside evaluation. It is in this context that we approach the
topic of family and community engagement today, focusing on the Full Service
Community School model (FSCS), the District strategy for family and community
involvement being implemented at four of our schools so far.
Full Service Community Schools (FSCSs) developed as a strategy of
service coordination intended to break down silos and allow for collaboration
between agencies serving children at their schools, thus facilitating providing
all of the support services children need in one location. Inspired by the
success of the Harlem Children’s Zone, championed by the Coalition of Community
Schools, and embraced by federal and state education leaders seeking to meet
the needs of low-income children, the approach was an attractive one for
reform-minded school administrators and their community partners in Holyoke,
Massachusetts.
The Harlem Children’s Zone approach has been difficult to replicate
in other locations around the country because it was an intensive one that
involved working with children before they entered school. The approach began by engaging the parents or
caretakers in the home and obtaining support services for families very early
in the children’s lives, and most distinctly, by delineating a specific
concentrated geographic area for concentrated delivery of coordinated
services. Children 0-3 and their parents
participated in Baby College; children from 3 to 5 years of age in the Path to
Promise program, and only children winning lotteries participated in the
charter school Promise Academies. There is debate in the literature about the
success of the Harlem Children’s Zone as measured by children’s outcomes, but
there is considerable agreement that the approach is very difficult to
replicate.
The national FSCS advocacy organization known as The Coalition for
Community Schools identifies the following five conditions for effective
learning environments upon which full-service community schools are designed
and built: “1. The academic program is characterized by high expectations,
challenging courses, and qualified teachers; 2. Students are engaged in
learning before, during, and after school – wherever they are; 3. The basic
needs of young people and their families are met; 4. Parents, families, and
school staff have relationships based on mutual respect; and 5. Communities and
schools partner to ensure safe, supportive, and respectful learning
environments for students and to connect students to a wider community.” (Eccles, J. and Gootman, J.A., Eds. Community
Programs to Promote Youth Development. Washington, DC: National Academies
Press, 2002, p. 15). Putting aside for a
moment the question of whether the FSCS approach actually produces measurable
academic and socio-emotional outcomes, one would be hard put to argue that these
five conditions upon which FSCSs are to be built existed or exist in any of the
four FSCSs in Holyoke.
Even strong supporters of FSCSs contend that, “We believe that
community schools should be seen as vehicles for education reform; therefore,
improved learning and achievement must be a long-term measure of the
effectiveness of this growing movement. In addition to test scores, learning
and achievement related indicators include rates of attendance, promotion,
graduation, suspension and expulsion for example. It is important to note that
community schools are designed to affect not only educational outcomes but
other outcomes as well. Such outcomes include improved social behavior and
healthy youth development; better family functioning and parental involvement;
enhanced school and community climate; and access to support services. These
outcomes have value in and of themselves, in addition to affecting educational
outcomes.” (Evaluation of Community Schools: findings to date, Joy G. Dryfoos,
Hastings-on-Hudson New York, 10706. Downloaded from http://www.communityschools.org/assets/1/AssetManager/Evaluation%20of%20Community%20Schools_joy_dryfoos.pdf quotation
from page 2).
While more analysis is required to determine all of these different
outcomes for the four Holyoke Public Schools FSCSs, one place to begin is by
tracking publicly reported MCAS data.
MCAS Data Kelly School, FSCS
since 2012
Year
|
ELA
Proficient
|
ELA
NI/W
|
CPI
|
Math
Proficient
|
Math
NI/W
|
CPI
|
2010
|
19
|
81
|
56.3
|
13
|
85
|
48.4
|
2011
|
20
|
78
|
54.3
|
10
|
88
|
45.2
|
2012
|
18
|
82
|
51.9
|
11
|
87
|
43.2
|
2013
|
19
|
81
|
52.5
|
17
|
77
|
54.0
|
2014
|
14
|
85
|
49.7
|
19
|
77
|
51.8
|
MCAS Data Lawrence, opened as
FSCS 2013
Year
|
ELA
Proficient
|
ELA
NI/W
|
CPI
|
Math
Proficient
|
Math
NI/W
|
CPI
|
2013
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
2014
|
10
|
90
|
46.6
|
17
|
83
|
47.1
|
MCAS Data Morgan School, FSCS
since 2011
Year
|
ELA
Proficient
|
ELA
NI/W
|
CPI
|
Math
Proficient
|
Math
NI/W
|
CPI
|
2010
|
14
|
86
|
49.0
|
6
|
93
|
35.6
|
2011
|
22
|
78
|
56.9
|
12
|
88
|
45.3
|
2012
|
22
|
78
|
54.7
|
12
|
86
|
43.7
|
2013
|
20
|
80
|
52.2
|
13
|
85
|
44.0
|
2014
|
19
|
81
|
53.9
|
11
|
88
|
44.1
|
MCAS Data Peck School, FSCS
since 2009
Year
|
ELA
Proficient
|
ELA
NI/W
|
CPI
|
Math
Proficient
|
Math
NI/W
|
CPI
|
2010
|
22
|
77
|
58.9
|
13
|
84
|
51.9
|
2011
|
26
|
74
|
63.9
|
19
|
76
|
58.5
|
2012
|
21
|
77
|
60.1
|
19
|
76
|
61.8
|
2013
|
20
|
79
|
61.8
|
22
|
71
|
60.4
|
2014
|
17
|
82
|
49.4
|
15
|
82
|
47.8
|
Source: MADESE profiles.doe.mass.edu
To provide a fuller picture, detailed data on
the suspension, discipline referrals, attendance rates, and many other indicators
at Peck/Lawrence, Kelly, and Morgan FSCSs over the past five years is
needed. A full accounting of all grant
and local funds expended on the FSCS approach over the past five years would
complement this analysis, along with interviews with students and parents not
selected by FSCS staff and conducted without school-based nor central office
personnel present, perhaps by ESE liaisons or by a bicultural bilingual
researcher independent of current FSCS higher education partners.
Careful analysis of MCAS data, suspension and discipline data,
attendance data, and an objective examination at the state of student and
parent engagement in the FSCSs could help answer the mounting questions of
community leaders not receiving sub-contracts under FSCSs, of parents, and of
teachers not under the supervision of FSCS principals. Have the best intentions
and very large investment in the FSCS model produced its desired outcomes in
Holyoke? To ask this question is not in any way to discount the tremendously
valuable work of community partners nor to discourage a system of cross-agency
collaboration intended to wrap services around students at school. Nor is it to
tarnish the individual work of teachers, paraprofessionals, counselors and
other staff members at the four schools in question. Rather, it is to highlight the urgent
question of how the socio-emotional needs of students might be met to best
support improved academic and life outcomes for Holyoke students.
There are many models for socio-emotional learning and support. The
MA Model of Comprehensive School Counseling is a research-based K-12 guidance
counseling approach endorsed by MADESE and by MASCA:
The MA Career Development Education Benchmarks Crosswalk with the
Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks is a useful tool for aligning guidance to
Curriculum Frameworks:
Much has
been written on the importance of socio-emotional learning and the need to
implement guidance in PK-12 education and much has been documented by experts
on the subject of Comprehensive School Counseling in the Commonwealth. Implementing comprehensive counseling was
recognized as an urgent need in Holyoke.
However, it ended up taking a back seat and suffering from greatly
reduced funding as Adjustment and Guidance Counselor caseloads continued to
increase while the time scheduled to offer actual guidance decreased. (From
Cradle to Career: Educating our Students for Lifelong Success. Recommendations from the Massachusetts Board
of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Task Force on Integrating College and
Career Readiness. June 2012. http://www.doe.mass.edu/ccr/2012-06BESEReport.docx).
Even as non-experts, parents and educators with any background in
child development will easily understand that In PK-3rd grade young children should be
engaged in learning to name and express emotions as they develop emotional
self-regulation. Once students are 4-5th/6th graders they need
support to develop the self-efficacy and self-advocacy needed to interact
positively with others while becoming increasingly independent and responsible
learners and citizens. At the 6th/7th-12th
grade stage addressing adolescent issues and helping students plan for college
and careers through readily available MAESE tools is a critical guidance
moment.
The
PK-5th/6th grade socio-emotional learning is the
foundation for secondary guidance work focused on preparing students for
college and careers. While the Mass GRAD Initiative and other work by many
sectors produced an uptick in the Holyoke high school graduation rates
recently, any teacher can attest that HPS students’ socio-emotional issues
tremendously affect their learning and can lead to disengagement and/or
discipline problems that interfere with teaching while contributing to students
dropping out even before they enter high school.
Careful
study of the FSCSs conducted by objective outside evaluators selected by Dr.
Zrike and MADESE staff, not by invested administrators, could help identify
promising practices while freeing up funding to support the neglected Guidance
Counselors, to implement the MA Model of Comprehensive School Counseling
in all Holyoke Schools, and to support the socio-emotional learning
increasingly linked to academic outcomes.
Extrapolating the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) approach via the
community school movement into Holyoke’s FSCSs is extremely complicated due to
the specific student profile of the Holyoke Public Schools and local
conditions. Even public schools
neighboring the HCZ did not match the composition of the HCZ charter schools:
“And comparing the student populations at Promise Academy with those in the
nearby regular public schools is an apples-to-oranges matchup: The HCZ schools
serve significantly fewer high-need learners, like special education students
or kids who are learning English. For instance, only 6 percent of the third
graders who look the 2007-08 English test at the Promise Academy had
disabilities, while disabled kids made up 30, 40, even 60 percent of the
test-taking pool in open-enrollment schools in the district. Only a handful of
students at the Promise Academies are English-language learners, compared with
14 percent in schools citywide. And the students who attend HCZ are selected by
lottery, which may in itself shape the schools’ population: Unlike open-enrollment
neighborhood schools, the lottery requires a measure of parental initiative
that benefits HCZ students in other ways” (Helen Zelon, “Is the Promise Real:
The Harlem Children’s Zone Becomes a Template for National Change,” City Lights
34:1. March 2010. Download from http://www.phoenixworks.org/PLSC240/Zelon.pdf quotation from page 14).
Finally, the process of decision-making, the leadership, hiring, and
community representation in Holyoke’s FSCSs leaves much to be desired and has
taken place mostly outside of the formal channels of decision-making. Holyoke’s Latino residents have been largely
excluded from paid positions in the FSCSs. All past and present FSCS Managers
have been white and of European descent.
There is a growing feeling that an authentic parent voice is largely
absent in these schools.
The Holyoke School Committee was not part of the decisions about
which schools would be declared FSCSs.
The planning processes held up at each school as highly participatory
were essentially designed by the principals with a paid consultant and with the
participation of community agencies whose directors and employees, with a few
exceptions, do not live in the City of Holyoke and who do not have children in
the Holyoke Public Schools. Finally, the
FSCSs have become closed systems in which community partners are vetted by very
few individuals. Expanding the partnerships to meet evolving student and family
needs has proven very challenging and the process is not transparent.
We imagine that given the publicity and funding the FSCSs have
received, Dr. Zrike and our MADESE liaisons may be surprised by the questions
presented here. They do not know that a culture of fear exists around
questioning any of these decisions or even evaluating the FSCS model. The
favored position of FSCSs in our District and in our school administration, as
well as in our City Hall, has cut off discussion and close examination.
The following pending questions for further research have been
submitted by Holyoke residents and HPS employees:
1. Has the large amount of funding spent on FSCS had any impact on increasing achievement and/or closing the achievement gap? Where is the data to support any such gains?
2.
How has the focus on allocating funds to the FSCSs impacted district
instructional budgets with regard to class size, staffing, and support for
needed instructional programs?
3.
Exactly what amounts of federal, state, and private grant funds and local funds
have been spent on FSCSs in Holyoke?
4.
Were funds traditionally set aside for summer school, family literacy, and
other enrichment programs diverted to FSCSs?
5. Is the FSCS model clearly identified as the District model? How was this decision made?
6. Of the people employed by the FSCS programs as managers, how many
are Latinos? How many live in Holyoke?
7. How many
Holyoke parents are involved and what benchmarks are used to measure their
engagement?
8. How many people of color are part
of the decision making either as employees, parents, or community partners in
the FSCSs? How many are Holyoke residents?
9. Of the FSCS
sub-contracts, how many have gone to organizations based in Holyoke? Is there a
list available?
10. How many of
the college students placed in volunteer and internship positions in the FSCSs
are graduates of Holyoke High School or Dean Technical Vocational High School?
What percentage are enrolled at HCC? What percentage are Latinos/as?
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