On the surface nothing in particular stands out for those arriving at a recent meeting in the atrium of Journalism & Media Academy. Walking into the building, one would have found a typical meeting space—rows of chairs and tables assembled in circles.

The 20-people assembled on this cold December evening are taking part in a process most never get to experience—designing a high school—and not just any school, but Weaver High School, one of Hartford’s great institutions.  Although a visit to the current Weaver school resembles a demolition zone, the Weaver Steering Committee sees something much greater in the piles of rubble. With the ability to look at the school with fresh eyes, they know the Weaver project is about much more than constructing a building.

The Weaver High School Redesign steering committee, involving community leaders, Weaver alumnae, parents, corporate leaders, university leaders, and school district staff, is daring to imagine a truly student-centered high school: fully resourced, fully trained, fully connected, and fully accountable to the community.

“Even back in the day, with school turn arounds either forced via threat of state takeover or incentivized via federal Race-to-the-Top money, you still didn’t see the kind of community engagement that you’re seeing right now,” says Paul Diego Holzer, executive director of Achieve Hartford!. “There’s power in the school district, the private sector, and the grassroots community coming together without a mandate by the state and without a huge carrot from the federal government to imagine something new.”

It all started two years ago when the Blue Hills Civic Association led a series of community meetings and visioning sessions to define what kind of graduate the new Weaver High School must produce.  After that, volunteers broke into working groups to make recommendations on family and community engagement, school culture and climate, the student learning experience and the building design.

Then, when community leaders approached former school superintendent Dr. Beth Schiavino-Narvaez to co-lead the redesign process, she responded favorably. She knew she would have to engage with the community at some point, and here was Blue Hills Civic Association and residents already taking responsibility.

The new superintendent, Dr. Leslie Torres-Rodriguez, “has not just embraced the idea of a co-led process; she’s embraced the implementation of a co-led process, where Blue Hills Deputy Director Vicki Gallon-Clark is co-chair of the steering committee with the Hartford Public Schools chief of staff,” Paul says.

The $100,000 million fully renovated school is intended to open in 2019 and house 900 students from three schools being brought together under one roof – the Journalism and Media Academy, High School Inc., and Kinsella Magnet High School of Performing Arts.

This process doesn’t feel like the window dressing exercise of the past. “There is a very, very different feel this time around with both the community members and the private sector feeling like they can have their voice heard and can influence decisions at the highest level,” he says. “With so many educators, advocates and community leaders realizing that education issues can’t be solved without the community and without coming together, sharing power is the goal in this process. And it is a sign of strength for our city. Education leaders at Hartford Public Schools probably feel a sense of risk, but courageous leadership is what is called for right now.”

Despite looking like a prison because of its lack of windows, Weaver High School had at one time a reputation for providing a rigorous curriculum and graduating students well-prepared for the demands of high quality colleges. The school had relationships with area colleges and universities where students could enroll in educational summer programs that gave them a taste of medicine, engineering and other disciplines.

But in recent years, students with “A” averages at Weaver found themselves unprepared for college, often forced to begin with remedial classes, says Vicki Gallon-Clark, deputy director of the Blue Hills Civic Association and Weaver steering committee co-chair.

The long-time school volunteer says she agreed to co-lead the committee because she wanted to save future Weaver students from attending a school with a curriculum that lacks rigor, with teachers who don’t look like them.

In the past, Ms. Vicki says, Hartford Public Schools didn’t feel the need to be accountable to the community, and the community members didn’t feel they had the power to influence their children’s education.

“It’s a whole new story now,” she says. “We expect a rigorous academic curriculum. We want a voice in how that looks. There’s been some growing pains on both sides. There’s been some resistance. Conflict is good; it means the old norms are being challenged. It’s making room for creative ideas.”

The community members feel that their voice is being heard. For example, community representatives told the district representatives they want Weaver to have one leader, she says, bringing documentation to back up their recommendation.

Members of the Student Learning Experience work group have discussed details about the vetting and hiring of teachers, characteristics they want to see in the school leader and what core classes should be required for students, says Jason Farquharson, a BHCA board member, Weaver alumnus and steering committee member.

Habitat for Humanity Executive Director Karraine Moody, a Weaver graduate and a Trinity College graduate, says she’s optimistic.

“Some people may say it’s been almost a year and we’re just getting into it,” but these things take time, says Karraine, who serves on the School Culture and Climate work group.  “So many people have different experiences with how they relate to the school.”

She’s appreciated the strong, in-depth, detailed conversations about testing, rigor and standards, she says, and feels people representing different perspectives have the chance to be heard. Each work group has been charged with establishing at least two or three measurable goals and recommendations within the next two months.

Another work group member, Kyra Brown, founder of Keys to the Gate, LLC, says as a parent and an active volunteer in the schools, she wanted to make sure the school would provide students with opportunities and prepare them for life after high school.

“We’re all working together,” she says. “We’re doing great work.”

So far, there are no high school students on the committee, but Ms. Vicki hopes they’ll be able to fill that gap and get at least one student on each of the work groups.

This story is the first in a series bringing you many of the innovative ways community members, educators, parents, students, higher education and business leaders are rethinking ways to do high school.

Pursuing Educational Equity

Why Education Matters:

“Despite our city’s challenges, we need more than ever to intensely focus on activities that will advance student achievement. I am eager to help invigorate the next era of opportunity in our capital city.”

Phil Waldeck
Chair of the Achieve Hartford! Board of Directors

When Phil Waldeck became chairperson of the Board of Directors in 2016, he pledged Achieve Hartford! would focus more intently than ever on activities that will advance student achievement. Since that time, Achieve Hartford! has redoubled the organization’s efforts to make real change that improves outcomes for students. Last month’s announcement of a new direction for Achieve Hartford! comes after significant internal deliberation and reflects how we as an organization can address unmet needs in our city.

To meet the mandate of quality education for all, more is required of us – individually and collectively.

We know a community of change-agents acting together can transform a city. Like you, we take calculated risks for things that are worth it. The education of 22,000 Hartford kids each year is more than worth it. So, we are shifting from “demanding change” to “creating change” through a new approach we call “Grasstops Organizing”.

What is Grasstops Organizing?

Achieve Hartford! is a Hartford-based social change nonprofit that organizes people in pursuit of educational equity for all students in Hartford Public Schools (HPS). Focusing our efforts in only three areas at a time, we activate, support and unite a tribe of change agents in the private sector: business/workforce, community-based organizations, higher education, and philanthropy. We work to ensure the private sector is prepared to be co-equal partners to the public sector, in which was are all driven by shared values and governed by shared responsibility.

With our tribe, we work to realign power and resources to move student outcomes. We realign power and resources (people, time, data and money) by:

1. Using personal narratives to inspire action;
2. Building relationships to connect more individuals to the work and activate individual leadership;
3. Increasing individual leadership capacity to strengthen leadership in Hartford;
4. Launching coalitions that prove we can work together, differently;
5. Developing shared strategies and a common agenda;
6. Coordinating and supporting action to implement the agenda; and
7. Continuously reflecting, evaluating, and sharing key learnings to improve our work.

What’s Next?

When we say we need to work together, differently, we are acknowledging the need to take a new route to close the opportunity and achievement gap between Hartford and peer districts. We are acknowledging that what we have been doing was not working to move student outcomes.

We also acknowledge that public sector leaders like the mayor, the superintendent, and the board of education cannot achieve these goals alone. None of us can afford to hold onto this silent expectation.

We as a city are moving into uncharted territory. We are coming out of a period of frequent changes of leadership at the highest levels, including bringing in a new mayor, new superintendent, and new chair of the board of education. And with senior-level staff changes at HPS, newly elected board members, and a mayor seeking to become Connecticut’s next governor, it looks like there may be even more leadership changes in the coming year.

We cannot leave the public sector left to do this work alone. Despite many individual volunteers and organizational partnerships supporting the public sector, greater cross-sector coordination is needed. Without organized and coordinated support from the private sector, student outcomes will remain stagnant and the opportunity and achievement gap between Hartford and peer districts will persist.

Hartford’s 22,000 students need you. They need all of us. And they need us to work together.

Trusting in one another to come together to solve our city’s problems comes with risks. The risks are real, but the opportunity for success is even greater. Join us. Join our tribe and find out how you can be a part of the change that will transform Hartford into a talent hub for the state and that will increase the number of students getting a first-quality education.

We are providing multiple opportunities next month to go deeper in discussion on our action teams, work-groups and exploring a new third initiative.

Our education impact gatherings will include learning more about our direction but equally important, we want your reaction and ideas.

Please email us and let us know if you would like more information about attending.

If we are ever to make change real for all Hartford students, the time is now. This is Hartford’s moment. But it won’t be for long, if we don’t step up.

In her own words

Achieve Hartford!’s newest team member Daiana Lambrecht, coalition organizer lead talks about her work and the power of Grasstops organizing.

All In! Stakeholder Caucus: The Talent Around Us

Here’s a part of the urban workforce development debate you may not know about: Connecticut’s aging population is putting more pressure on employers and industries to replenish the rapidly retiring talent pipeline. Major cities, such as Hartford, will be responsible for 40% of Connecticut’s employment in the coming 10-15 years. But, with only 26% of Hartford students obtaining post-secondary diplomas, this is resulting in a talent gap often referred to as the middle skills gap.

On Tuesday, October 17th, members of the All IN! Coalition presented this reality at the 2^nd Annual Stakeholder Caucus, and discussed why now is the time for public and private sector collaboration to solve this part of the talent pipeline problem.  The message was clear — more can and must be done to take advantage of the talent that surrounds us. Helping Hartford youth prepare for and enter high-demand careers, locally, is a social conversation with an economic competitiveness imperative.

In his presentation at the caucus, Hartford Promise executive director, Richard Sugarman, highlights the positive impacts of college success – you can watch his section of the presentation here.  Improved health outcomes, reducing the need for social services, and lifting Hartford residents out of poverty by accessing the workforce competitively are results of completing some level of post-secondary education.  This makes clear the connection between education to workforce, the economy and a thriving community.
 

The coalition Hartford needs now

“Unleashing this potential is critical. Unless you unleash potential, you don’t have the talent quite yet. Unless you cultivate it and actually deploy it, it’s just potential”

Jaime Merisotis
President and CEO, Lumina Foundation

What’s needed to unleash the potential of talent is better coordination of various sectors and leaders with deliberate intent to ensure the education to workforce pipeline works.  While other efforts in the city focus on adults who have stopped out or re-engaging youth who are out of school and not working, the ALL IN! coalition is on a mission to prevent Hartford students from ever falling out of the system to begin with.  By realigning and reallocating resources, through our public and private sector partnerships, the coalition is working to ensure students leave high school prepared and with self-sufficiency to complete post-secondary education. ​

This coordinated action, supported by a strong steering committee and driven by Achieve Hartford! – who serves as the backbone organization, develops plans collectively with specific strategies carried out by action teams.

Two action teams were successfully launched in year one, Summer Melt and the Longitudinal Data Project.

Summer Melt – Summer melt is the occurrence of seemingly college-intending students, who fail to enroll in college the fall after graduation. These students have completed key college-going steps, such as being accepted to college, but a student is considered to have melted if he or she was college-intending, and yet still fails to transition successfully to college the fall after high school graduation.

• The HPS class of 2015 had an 88% college acceptance rate, and only a 61% enrollment rate during the first year. This action team performed an intervention with a cohort of 121 high school graduates from the class of 2017. The goal was to increase the enrollment rate for this class by ten percentage points over the previous class, which if successful would put enrollment over the 70% line.

Longitudinal Data Project – Lincoln Financial Group and Hartford Public Schools (HPS) signed a data-sharing agreement that presents an unprecedented opportunity for all relevant stakeholders in Hartford education to see which factors weigh most heavily in determining student outcomes.

• HPS shared seven years of student-level data with Lincoln’s actuaries, who are using the data to produce a data dashboard and a predictive model.

You can watch Hartford Consortium for Higher Education, executive director, Martin Estey reporting on the progress of the action teams here.

With a goal oriented agenda driving the mission, the coalition announced year two priorities for 2018.

1. “Nearlies” Action Team — will focus on students who are close to crossing the eligibility line for a Hartford Promise scholarship. Through targeted interventions more students will meet the criteria to qualify and receive $20,000 towards 4-year and $10,000 towards 2-year college.
2. Persistence and Retention Action Team – the coalition is actively engaging the nine local colleges and exploring strategies that all can implement to increase first year undergrad persistence to second year and then degree attainment.

Post-Secondary Success Matters

The vision of Hartford as a talent hub – where Hartford students are accessing opportunities, employers are filling talent gaps, and the city is reaping the benefits of economic growth – won’t’ be realized without better alignment and coordinated resources. We also know this goal is completely within our reach, because with 16 high schools maintaining graduating classes of less than 100 students, we can make sure each student gets the support they need to continue their education or career credential.

If we want to see a thriving talent pipeline coming out of Hartford, it’s time for everyone to be All IN! Getting involved in one of our action teams or approaching us with a new one is simple, email Chris Marcelli to schedule a time to talk.

2016-17 SBAC: How did Hartford Students Perform?

Looking at the Growth Model. An Achieve Hartford! Mini-Report

Following a student’s growth from year to year gives a bigger picture of curriculum and teaching effectiveness. The Connecticut State Department of Education adopted a growth model with the belief that all students in grades 4 through 8 should demonstrate growth each year in ELA and Mathematics.  Click through to our third SBAC mini-report for a closer look at Hartford student’s growth performance.

See the report here

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In This Edition

Paul Diego Holzer
Executive Director of Achieve Hartford

Today, we take another look at the recently released SBAC scores for grades 3-8 and see how Hartford students are faring on what is a much more rigorous battery of tests than the CMT of years past.  The results are sobering, and urgency is high.  In addition, we take a look at who is running for the upcoming Hartford Board of Education election and also learn what one unique partnership in our city can teach us about thinking big.

Thanks for staying engaged,

Paul Diego Holzer

The Board Hartford Needs Now

By Derrick Everett

School board election season is fully upon us. The central question remains: what should voters be looking for in a strong Hartford board member?

A Look Back

Before discussing this year’s candidate forum for the upcoming Hartford Public Schools Board of Election, it may be helpful to think back to what we already know Hartford needs of its board of education members.

In the past, we have written about the individual and team attributes needed. Among these, there are two articles that hold particular importance.

The first: We hosted a public summit sponsored by the Nellie Mae Education Foundation December 2016 addressing “Transformative Education Governance” that looked at how we can both make incremental improvement and dramatic innovations to improve student outcomes and ensure system-wide alignment and coordination.

Serving as a school board member is a challenge for most leaders.  As several Hartford Public Schools Board Members noted in our Transformative Governance forum last December, Hartford and the HPS Board of Education faces significant governance and leadership challenges.

Specific challenges mentioned include:

• The Challenge of Service. Board members serve in a volunteer capacity for what arguably could be a full-time job. Check out video of Board Members Tiffany Glanville and Richard Wareing discuss this and other challenges here, starting at the 37:47 mark.
• Place Students at the Center.  Success for students must come by centering conversations about education (and education itself) around students AND by inviting students meaningfully into the conversation to help create what education could and should look like in the 21st century.
• Break the Mold.  Alternative models from Colorado and Springfield, MA, respectively, suggested break-the-mold attempts to shake up the system of governance, through collaborations among traditional authorities, teacher unions, and programs networked across schools. Unusual alliances are welcome; even more unusual ways to center on student needs may be needed.

The second: In January 2016, we wrote about “What Qualities Matter Most for Board of Education Members?”. Here are some of the attributes we identified for board leaders:

• A clear understanding of the role that a high-performing Board of Education plays in supporting school improvement
• High expectations for what our schools and students can achieve
• Willingness to make tough decisions and support long-term change in the face of short term demands
• Support for the District’s current strategy and direction
• Unbiased support of what works, based on data
• Ability to understand and utilize data in ways that drive accountability.

For more insights on board attributes – including pros/cons of having a hybrid, “strong mayor”-type board, read the full article here.

2017 Board Candidates

This year’s school board election on November 7 provides voters with an opportunity to bring in (or back to the board) the leaders Hartford needs now.

Just this week, candidates shared their vision and plans for leadership at a Hartford Public School Board of Education Candidate Forum.

Showcasing the incredible capacity of our students, the forum format and questions were designed by Hartford youth in the Promise Zone Yes! Career Pathways for Youth program (a joint program of Capital Workforce Partners and Blue Hills Civic Association). The event itself was hosted in partnership with The Hartford Votes/Hartford Vota Coalition and Hartford Public Library. For full video of the forum, click here.

All five candidates attended the forum:

• Shonta Browdy (Working Families)
• Ted Cannon (Republican)
• Ayesha R. Clarke (Democrat)
• Juan Manuel Hernandez (Democrat – Incumbent)
• Craig T. Stallings (Democrat – Incumbent)

The candidates participated in a four-part forum:

• Opening Statements: Each candidate was given a 3 minute opening statement.
• “Speed Dating”: Each candidate answered questions from a small group. At the end of 5 minutes, candidates rotated to a new group for another 5 minute discussion.
• “Jeopardy Round”: Student organizers asked a question  and candidates rang their buzzers to indicate they wanted to answer the question. Once all candidates had answered a question, the audience indicated via applause, which answer they liked the best.
• Audience Questions: Audience members got to ask questions of the candidates.

This exciting and informative night provided live audience members and at-home viewers of AccessTv with meaningful insights into the types of board members the candidates might become.

When asked “What is the most important issue that the Board of Education should focus on during the next year?”, here are the candidate responses available (provided via Hartford Votes/Hartford Vota):

• Craig Stallings. “The next year the Board will have to focus on school consolation and programmatic design for schools affected by consolidation. We will have to build capacity in our community to support education through engagement and stakeholder conversations.”
• Juan Hernandez. “The Board must focus on a solid restructuring of our school district. This means consolidating our district so that resources are being utilized properly and looking to regain those who have gone to other districts for other opportunities. If we do this, we’ll be able to provide so much more.”
• Ayesha Clarke. “One of the most important issues that I believe the Board of Education should focus on is ensuring that all schools in the district have the necessary budgetary resources needed to ensure student learning is not impacted and that children are safe at all times while they are students within the school system.”
• Ted Cannon. “The most important issue to be addressed is the wasteful, undisciplined spending in Hartford Public Schools. The bloated bureaucracy in the Central Office is the greatest example, but there are many others requiring review. The annual education budget translates to more than $20,000 per student. Yet we still cannot provide a consistent quality education to Hartford’s students.”

Bottom Line:

If you are a Hartford resident, don’t forget to vote for  board of education candidates on Tuesday, November 7. Polls open 6am to 8pm. You may vote for up to three (3) candidates. The candidates elected to the Hartford Board of Education will be stewarding our district for the next four years.

* * * * * * * *

Hartford Votes/Hartford Vota Coalition Members include: Blue Hills Civic Association – CT Community Nonprofit Alliance – MetroHartford Alliance – Hartford 2000 – Hartford Public Library – League of Women Voters of Greater Hartford – Achieve Hartford! – CT Center for a New Economy – Common Cause in Connecticut – City of Hartford Registrars of Voters – A Better Way Foundation – Nancy A. Humphreys Institute for Political Social Work – Hartford 2000 – Office of the Secretary of the State – Community Capacity Builders.

2016-17 SBAC: How did Hartford Students Perform?

By Chris Marcelli with Paul Holzer

Download the 2nd mini report containing school and district comparisons. The data presented in this report is the most recent SBAC performance data for students in the Hartford Public Schools.

Download Report

Tapping our assets, thinking big

By Achieve Hartford!

There are many partnerships worth highlighting in Hartford.  Here is one in particular we think you should know about.  A 10-year partnership between the University of Hartford and the Montessori Training Center Northeast (run by CREC) focused on fulfilling the shared goal of educating more teachers in the Montessori method just earned a nearly $5 million grant.

The Walton Family Foundation’s James Walton Fund awarded a $4.8 million grant to the partnership to establish the nation’s first undergraduate Association Montessori Internationale (AMI) Montessori education concentration at the University of Hartford and to conduct five years of research about the Montessori educator preparation. Starting this fall, students began entering the program to earn the internationally recognized AMI diploma through this unique bachelor’s degree. Enrolled students will be able to do their student teaching at area Montessori schools.

“What you had were people in the practitioner community and a university who were passionate about Montessori education and were able to come together for our mutual benefit,” says University of Hartford Provost H. Frederick Sweitzer. The partnership allows the University to award academic credit to those studying the Montessori method, and the University benefits by getting the expertise of instructors from the Montessori Training Center Northeast.

This helps both organizations, Sweitzer says, because the chance to earn academic credit will attract more students to the program; offering Montessori instruction to graduate and undergraduate students will help UHart differentiate itself from the competition.

The Walton funds also finance the University’s ability to offer financial aid to students seeking Montessori credit, which both partners believe will increase the number and diversity of those trained to become Montessori teachers. The grant also provides funding for MTCNE to relocate to the newly renovated Butterworth Hall on UHart’s Asylum Avenue campus in Hartford’s West End.

“We’ve been trying to find a permanent home since 2003,” says Capital Region Education Council’s Tim Nee, assistant executive director of the Office of School Transformation. “It’s nothing that happened over night. … You have to have people with really big passionate commitments to the work who are in it for the long run. If anyone left in mid-stream, it derails us for a time. You lose momentum.”

Nee credits the partnership’s success to the memorandum of understanding worked out in the beginning, which defined, in writing, each partner’s roles and received approval from the university president and CREC’s executive director. While both organizations have seen staff turnover at the highest levels, the MOU, coupled with long-serving advisory board members, have allowed the partnership to reach its goals, he says.

“That speaks for the passion and commitment and the sustainable relationship we made early on,” he says. It also helped that CREC remained supportive “through good times and bad times,” Nee says, even the year when the program lost money.

For Nee, this grant and what it funds, rewards a partnership born of necessity and shared values. Nee opened CREC’s first Montessori magnet school as its principal in 1999. From the start, he faced a shortage of Montessori-trained teachers.

“Getting them state certified was next to impossible. We knew we needed to do something different,” he says. He and his colleagues reached out to a few area colleges, and the University of Hartford agreed to work with them. Together, they collaborated with the state Department of Education’s Bureau of Certification, which, after extensive review, eventually agreed to award a Unique Endorsement Montessori Certification for teachers with a bachelor’s degree, an AMI Montessori diploma and four additional graduate courses that could be taken at the University of Hartford.

Nee worked with Regina Miller, formerly leader of UHart’s early childhood education program, to develop a master’s program. In 2007, the university began offering up to 18 graduate credits in Montessori training, with Nee and some of his staff teaching some of the graduate classes.

Greg Florio, executive director of CREC, credits the long-standing partnership between CREC and the University, as well as shared goals and persistence.

“The work with the Walton Foundation didn’t happen overnight. It was years in working with them, having them understand what we were doing,” he says. If an organization can identify a partner to help it reach its goal, Florio says, “you’ve probably doubled your capacity, which helps you move forward with a plan.”

The partnership between the University and CREC doesn’t end with this agreement.

“There’s now a dialogue between us on the Montessori-related programs, but also for other opportunities. We don’t even know what some of them might be yet,” he says. The relationship has “created connections toward our two organizations.”

This partnership is something other nonprofits in Hartford can learn from and emulate, says Paul Diego Holzer, executive director of Achieve Hartford!

“What I admire most about the partnership is that they’re thinking big. They’re looking at their assets and they’re saying, ‘Why not have it be us who internationally push growth in our field forward?’ When I think of Hartford, I think of it as a city of incredible assets and I want all of our private sector – nonprofit, higher education, corporate and philanthropic leaders – to think boldly,” Holzer says.

“The other thing I admire – too often people think about partnership and they think about it in one facet. I feel like when these two partners came together they were trying to think about it in as many facets as possible. It wasn’t just: ‘We need space; help us recruit teachers to these graduate programs.’  Everything CREC does and everything UHart does – all the assets on both sides – were brought to bear.”

Thinking big just landed a multi-million dollar commitment from the Walton Family Foundation’s James Walton Fund.  Let’s emulate this type of thinking throughout our city.

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