The ALL IN! Steering Committee, during its September meeting, agreed to address the added student engagement challenges brought on by living through a pandemic during the 2020-21 school year.

Acknowledging the negative impact virtual learning has on high school seniors, the committee agreed the best way to leverage the cross-sector nature of its work would be to launch a comprehensive effort to ensure every Hartford Public Schools senior receives counseling support that produces a post-graduation plan.

A sub-committee has been working for the past few weeks on ways to support high school counselors on Wednesdays, when students have no academic classes. Members can provide workshops on topics such as how to complete the common app, write a college essay and fill out the FAFSA. At least a few sessions, presented in multiple languages and accessible at any time, will be geared to parents, including how and why to complete the AFSA and why it’s important for families to let their children get an education. Committee members are working together to create and present these online workshops, which will begin as soon as possible.

In addition, supplemental advising to work 1:1 with students to develop their post-secondary plans will be needed. The committee is considering options to support both the students who are “college-intentional” as well as those Class of 2021 members who don’t want to attend college and may want to join the military or pursue apprenticeships, certification programs and/or job training. While the Hartford Consortium’s Career Beginnings program already supports many college-intentional students, counselors could refer other students for 1:1 support from other coalition partners.

Finally, a component of the work must address the need to engage students and families directly so they know the students’ options as well as families’ roles. As more information becomes available about this year’s ALL IN! initiative, it will be shared.

In a year when the COVID-19 pandemic impacted enrollment declines at colleges nationwide, community colleges experienced the biggest drop. Nationwide, community college enrollments dipped by 7.5 percent, according to preliminary data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. With all Connecticut community college classes online, coupled with the heavy economic and public health toll COVID-19 has had on people of color, community colleges in the state expected fewer enrollments.  

Reflecting that trend, a lower percentage of students served by the ALL IN! Coalition’s Summer Transition program started college this fall than in previous years. However, we learned from past challenges and made modifications, and as a result, the total number of students served jumped. Formerly called the Summer Melt Action Team during its pilot phase, the program just completed its fourth year. It evolved into the Summer Transition Initiative and is led by Achieve Hartford’s director of programs.

The uptick in the number of Hartford students who were part of the Summer Transition cohort enrolled in either Capital Community College (CCC) or Manchester Community College (MCC) – 104 this year compared to 70 last year – can be credited to an agreement between CCC and MCC and Achieve Hartford. This spring, CCC and MCC staff provided Achieve Hartford staff with the names of Hartford Public Schools (HPS) class of 2020 graduates who had been accepted for the fall 2020, as well as the names of some students who had applied. This resulted in the largest cohort since the program began – 320 compared to last year’s 200.

In past years, Achieve Hartford relied on HPS guidance counselors to provide the names and contact information of students who planned to attend one of several Hartford-area colleges, including private and public four-year colleges and community colleges.

Historically, more HPS grads attend CCC and MCC than any other colleges in the state, so this year we concentrated on serving those students exclusively. We entered into a memorandum of understanding with CCC and MCC, and their staffs gave our staff the names of prospective students while they were still in high school.

Through the Summer Transition program, we reached out to those seniors to offer the support of an Outreach Specialist to help them complete the matriculation process through the summer. With help recruiting potential staff from our community college partners, we hire and train Outreach Specialists who help HPS graduates navigate the many steps toward starting college, including filling out financial aid forms and registering for classes.

“Given all the challenges of trying to connect with students during a pandemic when they were not physically in school, we consider a 54 percent engagement rate a success,” says Paul Diego Holzer, executive director of Achieve Hartford.

While the 33 percent enrollment in college represents a dip from last year’s enrollment rate of 38 percent, all evidence suggests the COVID-19 pandemic plays a role, Holzer says. At CCC and MCC, overall registrations this fall fell by double digits. Traditionally, minority and low-income students compromise a large percentage of community colleges’ student population.

We cannot yet confirm how many of the students out of the 320-student cohort enrolled at other institutions, though some told the Outreach Specialists they planned to enroll elsewhere.

This year, the state’s community colleges offered free tuition to full-time students who met a series of income, citizenship and residency requirements. Some HPS graduates told the Outreach Specialists that they were postponing the start of college until classes were held in person, until they could improve their English literacy or, if they lacked U.S. citizenship, until they could earn the money for tuition.

These days, if you aren’t using technology to communicate with college students, then you probably aren’t reaching them. Thankfully, one nonprofit company has developed a customizable app-based approach to help students adopt key behaviors that will lead to success at college. Now – more than ever – first-generation students need help to persist to completion of their degree. Thanks to a partnership between Achieve Hartford and Capital Community College, the 11-year-old nonprofit, Beyond 12, is now working alongside Capital staff to build out the right mix of content and incentives within the app to drive key student behaviors. Launching this month, it’s designed to lead to better persistence outcomes for all Capital students.   
 
How will it work?  

All Capital Community College students will be asked to download the Beyond 12 app, GradGuru, which will text students reminders about academic, financial aid and course registration deadlines, as well as steps required for college transfers and ways to connect to campus resources.

“With many needs and limited funding, this is a service our students need that we could not afford to offer,” says Jason Scappaticci, Capital’s dean of students. “We’re grateful to Achieve Hartford for purchasing GradGuru on behalf of our students.”  
 
The app sends out one to three nudges or reminders a day to some 50,000 students from 19 community colleges. With campuses shut down because of the pandemic, the app provides colleges an effective way to communicate with their students.  Early results from its use at community colleges throughout California are promising: 70 percent of students recommend GradGuru to their classmates; 65 percent report an impact on meeting more deadlines; and 54 percent of daily nudges are opened.  
 
How did we get here?  

With the ALL IN! Coalition focusing not just on college readiness and enrollment, but also college persistence, Achieve Hartford has been looking around the country to see what is working and what tools could become even more important in the era of virtual learning. Having piloted peer mentoring at three colleges last fall as part of the ALL IN! Coalition’s Campus Retention action team, this summer presented the first opportunity for Achieve Hartford to take that pilot to scale at CCC and MCC, starting in August. Piloting a technology solution this school year was an additional step we could take to deepen the partnership with higher ed and learn what works.
 
In addition to the app, the partnership with Beyond 12 allows Achieve Hartford and CCC to use a real-time, Beyond 12 data system called Alumni Data Tracker to monitor the progress of Hartford Public Schools graduates attending CCC.   

“The data tracking feature will help Achieve Hartford keep track of all Hartford Public Schools graduates, including those whom we mentor through our College Persistence program and those we don’t,” says Paul Diego Holzer, executive director. “We can compare each cohort and follow them through their community college years and beyond.” 
 
The partnership is the first in Connecticut for Beyond 12, which was founded by a first-generation student to help others overcome the challenges she faced.  
 
“We are thrilled to partner with Achieve Hartford and Capital Community College to ensure that Hartford students have the tools to not only obtain post-secondary degrees but to also translate those degrees into meaningful employment and choice-filled lives,” says Alexandra Bernadotte, founder and CEO. “We share Achieve Hartford’s commitment to build a strong talent pipeline for the state and region. Through our platform, we will track longitudinal student outcomes and share data and insights to help inform the work of Achieve Hartford’s cross-sector collaborators.” 
 
About Beyond 12  

Beyond 12 is a high-tech, high-touch coaching platform that helps high schools, college access programs and colleges provide their students with the academic, social and emotional support they need to succeed in higher education. Founded in 2009, Beyond 12 works to dramatically increase the number of historically under-represented students who graduate from college.