When the School Day Ends, Hunger Persists

A couple of weeks ago, we hosted our third Intersectional Happy Hour at Satellite Room. For our most recent one, we looked at the relationship between food security and expanded learning programs.

We were especially thrilled to co-host this event with D.C. Hunger Solutions and we welcomed their Director, Beverly Wheeler who shared a bit about the work they do to  end hunger in the nation's capital. We are also grateful to feature her as this week's guest blogger.

Can you remember what you did when you got out of school at the end of each day?

I would go in search of an afterschool snack. Lunch had been at least three, maybe four hours ago and I was hungry. Times haven’t changed that much — students are still hungry at the end of the school day. However, what has changed is what we can do to address the needs of thousands of children from food-insecure households once school is out.

Out-of-School Time partners letter

DCAYA has drafted a joint letter to the Deputy Mayor for Education (DME and Council that we'd like to have as many of our members, OST providers and individual supporters as possible sign on to ahead of the markup. It lays out some core tenets that have emerged from discussions to date which are important to highlight for policy makers.

The letter reads as follows. And if we can include you/your organization as a signatory, click on the link toward the end of this post (and let us know how it should appear on the letter, e.g. your name/title, a board chair/ED's name, both names, or just the organization name):


November 17, 2016


Dear Deputy Mayor Niles, Chairman Grosso, and Members of the Committee on Education:

We wanted to thank you for the collaborative leadership you have shown in the months since the
announced dissolution of the DC Trust, most recently at the DC Council Committee on Education’s
October 31 hearing on Councilmember Grosso and Councilmember Nadeau’s proposed Office of
Youth Outcomes and Grants.

As a provider of community-based out-of-school time (OST) services in the District, we especially
appreciate that stakeholder partners have been at the table with policy makers, that all partners
are clearly focused on the present need in the community, and that efforts to forge a defined path
forward for funding OST have been balanced with the intention for a system that may evolve over
time. This is all reflected in how you have both made clear an intent to create a long-term strategic
plan informed by meaningful community input and inclusive participation.

We see areas of cohesion between both the Council’s and the DME’s proposed OST system
models, and as we move into this next phase, we see the following tenets as critical to the longterm
success of youth development in DC:

1. Governed by a body with broad stakeholder representation, which has clear authority to create and approve a strategic plan informed through meaningful community input processes, and which is empowered to ensure the strategic plan is carried out as intended.
   
2. Includes a strong executive leadership position with youth development expertise, and the staff, resources and authority necessary to span the multiple clusters, agencies and partners that are integral to holistic youth development. While accountable to the broad governing body for carrying out the long-term strategic plan, this position and staff should be housed in government with a distinct level of authority and transparency, subject to regular Council oversight for performance and budget.
   
3. Is streamlined in all functions to minimize burden and opportunity costs put on providers and families, specifically A) for providers presently navigating numerous systems with varied requirements and processes in grant making, reporting, capacity building, and vetting/partnerships with government agencies; and, B) for families presently forced to navigate multiple systems to provide duplicative information and, in essence, “prove poverty” to access core youth development opportunities.

We are happy to discuss these with you further, and are confident that in the coming weeks our
continued collaboration will produce a legislative path forward which reflects the consensus of
policy makers, advocates, and the OST provider community and the children, youth and families
we serve.


Sincerely,

[DCAYA Member/Partner Organizations – click here to email DCAYA and sign on!]

CC: Councilmember Brianne Nadeau, Ward 1; Councilmember Brandon Todd, Ward 4;
Councilmember Charles Allen, Ward 6; Councilmember Yvette Alexander, Ward 7;
Councilmember Anita Bonds, DC at-large

Shared Use: Safe Places for All Kids to Play and Grow

October is Afterschool Awareness Month, and for the next four weeks, DCAYA will be featuring the work of our community-based out-of-school time (OST) partners. To kick things off, we’ve invited our friends at the Advocates for Better Children’s Diets to share about shared use of community facilities in the District – what it is, where the disparities are, and what it means for youth in OST hours. Read on for more information and steps you can take to join the DC Active Kids campaign for shared use!

Washington, DC is often thought of as one of the healthiest cities in the US. It ranks 50th out of 51 states for obesity. On paper, DC looks like a beacon of health, but that’s not the whole story.

DC has significant disparities when it comes to health. When we add overweight to obesity, we find that 56% of all adults living in DC are overweight or obese. These rates increase to more than 72% in the District’s neighborhoods east of the river (Wards 7 and 8). Racial disparities with regards to obesity in the District are extreme, for example, less than one in every 10 white District residents are obese, whereas one in every three African Americans in the District are obese.

Childhood obesity is a growing focus for many health professionals because overweight and obese children often grow up to be overweight and obese adults, therefore they will have to deal with all of the associated diseases including hypertension, diabetes, and high cholesterol. D.C. has the ninth highest childhood obesity rate in the United States, according to Child Health Data.

It's Time to #ExpandLearningDC! (version 2.0)

This week, DCAYA is pleased to re-release #ExpandLearningDC, our policy and funding framework for afterschool and summer learning in DC, which we originally posted here in April. The report has since been updated following a vote that month by the DC Trust’s Board of Directors to dissolve the organization. This version also uses updated data to better reflect trends in out-of-school time access within DCPS.

Read the full report and our recommendations:

#ExpandLearningDC Framework

Don't have time for the full report? Check out our executive summary and quality checklist. We've developed the checklist tool to help education leaders, policy makers, funders and parents determine universal out-of-school time (OST) quality standards for provider programs and the District-wide system as a whole.

Report Appendices: We've also prepared resources on DCPS elementary and middle schools and expanded learning outcomes to reference in your advocacy, as well as fact sheets for afterschool enrollment in Title I elementary and middle schools in each Ward!*

                             Ward 1 Fact Sheet                     Ward 6 Fact Sheet
                             Ward 2 Fact Sheet                     Ward 7 Fact Sheet
                             Ward 4 Fact Sheet                     Ward 8 Fact Sheet
                             Ward 5 Fact Sheet

CURRENT TRENDS

• Local funding for community-based out-of-school time programs has declined by 60% since 2010. This has resulted in only a quarter of the locally-funded slots for community-based afterschool and summer learning that were there for kids just six years ago, from close to 10,000 in 2010 to under 2,500 in 2016.
• DCPS schools with the highest “at-risk” student enrollment also tend to have the lowest share of available afterschool enrollment slots through OSTP. While all young people benefit from these opportunities, kids who are considered “at-risk” stand to gain the most from participating in afterschool. The present trend in funding to schools gives reason to be optimistic, but overall need in the District persists.

RECOMMENDATIONS

If we are serious about providing safe, youth-friendly opportunities focused on improving outcomes and quality of life for all our children now and in future, we must reverse these trends. To do so on the scale that is needed, policy makers, funders, intermediaries and educational leaders must embrace an approach that fully integrates expanded learning into our public education continuum.

Please read the report to find out more about these trends and DCAYA's 8 recommendations exploring what it will take for more expanded learning opportunities to reach the many thousands of children and youth in the District who stand to benefit from them!

(* Please note, we did not prepare a fact sheet for Ward 3 because there are no Title I DCPS schools in the Ward, however Ward 3 elementary and middle schools and their at-risk enrollment are included in our DCPS schools appendix.)

Joseph Gavrilovich is DCAYA's senior policy analyst for expanded learning. If you have any questions about today's blog, or would like more information on our afterschool and summer learning advocacy please contact him at joseph@dc-aya.org

You can also reach out to him to obtain an archived copy of the earlier version of the #ExpandLearningDC report.

EXTRA: DCPS Budget Oversight Responses Show Promising Trends for Afterschool in FY17

We are posting this special extra blog this week to follow up on our #ExpandLearningDC report. You can also download our statement here.

At the request of the DC Council’s Committee on Education, DCPS has provided a narrative of their proposed FY2017 budgets for afterschool and extended day at individual schools ahead of the chancellor’s budget oversight hearing on Thursday, April 21, 2016.

The school district’s responses to the committee show some promising new investments in afterschool programs in DCPS Title I elementary schools and education campuses going into the next school year:

• DCPS will bring afterschool programs back in three elementary schools in Ward 7 in FY2017. Anne Beers, Randle Highlands and Smothers elementary schools all had Office of Out of School Time (OSTP) programming in school year 2014-2015 which was discontinued in the present school year. All three schools will see this programming restored in the coming school year, with 380 new seats for afterschool student enrollment and 37 new afterschool FTE positions between the three schools. This means a total of 52 schools will offer OSTP afterschool programming in the coming school year. (This is up from 49 as reported in our policy brief.)
• DCPS projects adding more than 800 new afterschool spaces for student enrollment in FY2017. In addition to the seats for restored programming at the three new schools, DCPS plans to add 452 new afterschool seats in existing OSTP schools. Some of the biggest gains from the current school year into next will be seen at Bruce  Monroe at Park View, Noyes, Bunker Hill, Leckie and Stanton elementary schools. The total number of OSTP afterschool slots budgeted for in the coming school year is 7,700. (This is up from 6,790 at the end of last school year, as reported in our policy brief.)
• DCPS’s total proposed budget for afterschool programming in FY2017 is $5.4 million, a 33% increase from the current school year. Funding will cover programming at three additional schools and the new afterschool enrollment spaces, as well as 183 new FTE positions to provide afterschool coverage at the schools, for a total of 804 FTE positions system-wide.

Local Funding for Local Opportunity: The Role & Vision of the DC Trust in Expanded Learning

The District of Columbia surpasses any state in its broad, unmet demand for afterschool and summer learning opportunities. More than 70% of our kids in grades K through 8 would participate in a program if one were available after school, compared to a national average of only 40% for all kids.*

The greatest gains from expanded learning programs are shown to be for youth who are considered at risk of academic failure due to poverty**, and in DC, that means close to 40,000 students in DC Public Schools (DCPS) and our public charter schools. Yet at last report for this school year, the DC Trust’s FY2016 budget had only allocated for 2,465 total out-of-school time (OST) program slots for youth. Alarmingly, the same report indicated that there is no current FY2016 budget allocation at all for summer learning.

With recent changes in the organization’s leadership and internal staffing structures, there has been lingering uncertainty about the DC Trust’s future as the grantmaking intermediary for local OST funding - uncertainty we strove to resolve at their recent performance hearing on February 23, 2016.

Community Providers Weigh In
The DC Alliance of Youth Advocates (DCAYA) and several of our community-based partners testified at the performance oversight hearing for the DC Trust before the DC Council’s Committee on Health and Human Services. Several clear themes emerged from across partner testimonies:

Path to Equity & Parity through Afterschool Access

If you are a parent of a young person who attends an after school program or the staff of an organization that partners with DCPS schools you may have already heard about the significant changes coming to out-of-school time at DCPS in 2013. While many of the changes are troubling and will negatively affect young people, today we’ll focus on the changes to the afterschool enrollment process and the unintended burdens the changes will place on low income families.

In years past, DCPS enrolled students in afterschool at each school site. Parents would identify which program they wanted their child to attend, and then worked with the DCPS afterschool site coordinator to provide all the necessary paperwork. This system was ideal for parents, albeit somewhat labor intensive for DCPS. At the time this system worked well because there were enough staff within DCPS OSTP to ensure all the paperwork was submitted correctly.

Ensuring the completion of proper documentation may not seem important, however due to recent funding cuts to local funding streams office, having proper documentation has become an absolute necessity. This is because federal reporting requirements for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program are strict and somewhat onerous. Further, failure to meet these requirements will result in a loss of funding in future years. When local dollars were being blended with these federal funds, it was feasible for DCPS OSTP to provide the necessary paperwork and reporting functions for TANF, while also focusing on quality programming and effective community partnerships.

In the last two years, however, local funding to DCPS afterschool has all but evaporated. With the loss of local funds, DCPS also lost a significant amount of staff and infrastructure necessary to maintain federal compliance. While DCPS was able to meet the compliance threshold to sustain TANF funds last year, this compliance cost DCPS-OSTP the ability to focus on quality and to cultivate community partnerships.

So, this year, DCPS OSTP was left between a rock and a hard place. To sustain the funding stream, something had to give. Rather than organizing enrollment for afterschool expanded learning programming at individual schools, DCPS will require all parents to enroll their students for afterschool between August 14th and August 30th at just one enrollment site housed in the Logan Annex at 215 G St. NE Washington, DC 20002 (at the corner of G St. and 2nd St. NE). If a parent fails to enroll their child during this window, the student cannot participate in any afterschool programming until the parent has completed the enrollment process at the DCPS Central Office.

This change is especially disturbing given the unequal burden it places on families with little to no economic security. Think about two families each headed by a single parent with two children. One resides east of the river and receives the maximum TANF benefit but also works part-time. The second lives in Ward 1 with an annual income of $45,000 a year. The difference in both actual and opportunity cost (time, lost wages, and transportation) just to sign their children up for programming is stark.

	Low Income Single Parent with Two Children residing on Naylor Road with a weekly income of: $254 (receiving TANF)	Middle Income Single Parent with Two Children residing in Columbia Heights with a weekly income of: $700
Time	3 hours	1 hour 20 minutes
Lost Wages	$25 (assuming they can go to and from work directly with no delay)	$0 (assuming a salaried employee able to take personal time)
Transportation Costs (non-rush hour)	$7.60 (for just the parent) $22.80 (including children)	$3.40 (for just the parent) $10.20 (including the children)
Total Cost:	$32.60-$47.80 or 13%-19% of their weekly income	$3.40-$10.20 or .48%-1.45% of their weekly income

While the benefits of enrollment in afterschool programming do outweigh these immediate costs in the long term, establishing a process that is more costly for economically insecure families even from the start is patently wrong. Further, the signal this process sends to many parents and community members is hardly one of educational equity.

The negative impact on families doesn't end with the financial burden of signing a student up either. While DCPS has made efforts to spread the word to parents, changing this process six weeks before the start of the year will likely negatively impact access for those students who could benefit the most from this programming.

Parents who are the least connected to their child’s school, parents who are struggling to get by day to day working multiple jobs, parents living in a shelter or couch surfing with no consistent mailing address, parents who are non-English speakers or are functionally illiterate, these are the parents who will be the most negatively affected by the changes to the enrollment system.

The solution to this issue is surprisingly straight forward. Stop funding DCPS afterschool programming solely through Federal TANF dollars. Yes, it’s that simple. With a more robust local investment, DCPS could go back to serving thousands of children and youth, could continue to meet TANF requirements in a family friendly way, while also maintaining their focus on quality programming and meaningful partnerships. That is the path to equity and parity. 

Additional Materials:
Afterschool Enrollment Flier 

Letter to Parents of Amidon-Bowen ES about Afterschool Enrollment Change

OSTP Sites: SY 13-14 

DCPS Announces Major Changes to the Afterschool Enrollment Process 

Questions or concerns related to these changes, or how the enrollment period will operate should be relayed to the DCPS Office of Out of School Time Programming 202-442-5002.

Maggie Riden is the Executive Director of DC Alliance of Youth Advocates. DCAYA is a citywide coalition that works to ensure policies, programs and practices within the District of Columbia that promote and propel youth into a productive and healthy adulthood.

To read more about youth issues in DC, you can FOLLOW us on Twitter, LIKE us on Facebook and VISIT us at www.dc-aya.org.

Student Engagement is Key to School Climate

The following blog is an installment in the DCAYA “School Climate” series where we asked experts, community members, and youth to write about variables affecting school climate. Guest blogger Chris Brown is the Executive Director of BUILD and writes about the need to engage students beyond the classroom.  

According to the latest U.S. Department of Education data, Washington DC has the lowest high school graduation rate in the country: only 59% of DC students graduate high school within four years. This is compared to a 79% national average. What's more, the National Center for Education Statistics has shown that only about 50% of DC high school graduates enroll in college, compared to the national average of 62%. This means that only a quarter of people in our Nation's Capital receive a college education which will have detrimental effects on their lifelong earning potential .

For many students, dropping out is the final step in a student’s disengagement from a school community. Often times this is a symptom of schools and their partners not providing engaging and relevant programming or curriculum. It’s no secret that DC schools are overwhelmed and under-resourced so we shouldn't let our teachers and administrators carry the entire burden of helping our students overcome the odds. We have to invest in support networks and extended day learning programs that complement classroom instruction to keep students engaged in their education. We have to expose our students to diverse ways of learning, to keep them invested in building their own futures.

Many of BUILD’s students prove this point, however there is one student in particular whose journey through high school highlights why engaging in meaningful academic experiences can help students in the District overcome the incredible odds stacked up against them.

Several years ago I met a young woman named Natalee whom many described as hot-tempered, angry, and disengaged. Natalee came to BUILD as a ninth grader in a DC public high school. Natalee flourished at BUILD and even became the CEO of her business team "We Go Friendly ," manufacturing reusable and customizable shopping bags. Despite this success, Natalee struggled to keep her cool behaviorally and focus academically, which ultimately led to her expulsion from school. Fortunately, BUILD’s model is a holistic one and we did not give up on Natalee so easily. Our model targets rising 9th graders and serves them through their 12th grade year. We utilize effective strategies like mentoring for disengaged and disadvantaged youth, particularly those in the 9th grade year, as over half of the young people who drop out do so in the 9th grade.

Because of Natalee's 4 years in the BUILD program she did not just become another DC dropout. She was able to re-enroll in school, raise her GPA and eventually become valedictorian of her graduating class. I'm proud to report that our former CEO is now a rising junior, with a scholarship, at Drew University and a true testament to the amazing outcomes that can be achieved when young people are fully supported both in school and out.

Natalee with Executive Director Chris Brown and CEO of Square and Founder of Twitter Jack Dorsey

As she noted recently, "I am grateful for the many lessons that I have learned at BUILD. More importantly, I am thankful for all the support I have received over 4 years. The interactions that I've had with BUILD staff members and mentors have been invaluable. BUILD has been there for many important moments of my life and held my hand through many tough times. As happy as I was to leave DC for college, a part of me was nervous and sad. I just couldn't picture life without BUILD. But - I really never left. Every time I come home from school I find my way back to the Incubator and I'm welcomed by those same welcoming smiles."

Chris Brown is the Executive Director at BUILD Metro DC. BUILD's mission is to use entrepreneurship to excite and propel disengaged, low-income students through high school to college success. In school year 2012-2013, 100% of BUILD seniors - our second graduating cohort - were accepted to at least one college or university.



Watch video from the BUILD Gala HERE. 

To read more about youth issues in DC you can FOLLOW DCAYA on Twitter,LIKE us on Facebook and VISIT us at www.dc-aya.org.

It's Time for Another Blog Series!

Last week’s community convening with members of the Anti-Bullying Task Force and the DC Office of Human Rights really got us thinking about some important issues that bullying contributes to and BOOM! an idea for a new blog series was born. So, without further adieu we introduce you to our latest blog series on ... SCHOOL CLIMATE!

The American Psychological Association defines school climate as:

"the overall quality and character of school life, including teaching and learning practices, organizational structures, norms and values, and relationships"

Pretty simply put, school climate includes everything that happens in a school, but it's important to recognize school climate IS more than just the sum of its parts. School climate is really all about how the component parts of a school work together to achieve something greater.

As any youth development advocate will tell you this is an extremely important feature of any school or program. This is because everything, even programming options for children and youth, has at least some good component parts. However, these parts don't always combine in a way that we achieve an intended outcome. For instance, sometimes good elements of programming don't outweigh bad ones (having really great curriculum won't necessarily help if good staff aren't in place to utilize it), or good elements just fail to achieve synergy with other good elements of programming and they mute or negate one another. These occurrences shouldn't be especially shocking. Even as individuals, how often do we decide we don't like a bar or restaurant because it has a weird vibe or know we dislike a new person we meet but can't quite put our finger on why? These all have to do with the effect that occurs when various parts come together to form a whole, but sometimes the whole ain't so great.

There is a vast and ever growing body of research on the effect of school climate and negative outcomes for young people and its for that reason that we are dedicating an entire blog series to this subject. Furthermore, we're always excited to highlight and feature the exciting work of the DCAYA membership so expect plenty of guest blogs in the upcoming month about all the different facets of this exciting, but often hard to grasp concept.

We'll be kicking off the series with a guest blog from our friends from DC Lawyers for Youth so stay tuned for some more great information on school climate later this week!

Anne Abbott is a Policy Analyst at DC Alliance of Youth Advocates and is currently writing a report on disconnected youth in the District. 

To read more about youth issues in DC you can FOLLOW us on Twitter, LIKE us on Facebook and VISIT us at www.dc-aya.org.

If you have an interest in guest blogging or contributing to a future blog series or post please contact DCAYA's Communications Associate, Angela Massino.

Creating a Bully Free Environment

Suzanne Greenfield from the DC Office of Human Rights and Andrew Barnett (Executive Director of member org SMYAL and Anti-Bullying Taskforce member) joined DCAYA yesterday morning at our Community Convening to discuss the work to date of the District’s Anti-Bullying Task Force including some key provisions of the District's Youth Bullying Prevention Model Policy which will take effect this Fall.

Suzanne explained that the model policy somewhat deviates from the approach taken by other jurisdictions for two main reasons. First off many other jurisdictions focus on zero tolerance bullying policies that simple punish individuals who engage in bullying as a means of eliminating the problem. This approach however really only addresses bullying once it has already occurred and does not affect the root of the issue. Suzanne explained that this is problematic for several reasons, but highlighted that many young people report that they have both been a bully and been bullied. When communities attempt to address this issue with a purely punitive approach they do not take into account that bullying whether its physical, verbal, or electronically based, it is part of a larger cycle of conflict.

The purely punitive route also fails to provide individuals who engage in bullying with alternatives to the bullying behavior. For instance if a young person verbally abuses another young person and as a result gets suspended from a school or program the bully can recognize that getting caught for that behavior got them in trouble, but they may not realize that they really need to functionally change their behavior. To invoke some Rhett Butler they would be like “the thief who isn't the least bit sorry he stole, but is terribly, terribly sorry he's going to jail.”

The other big difference between DC’s model anti-bullying policy and the policies other jurisdictions have implemented is that it is aimed not just at school-based bullying but at citywide bullying prevention. The policy presented to the Mayor earlier this year aims to eliminate bullying in public libraries, parks, recreation centers, community based organizations and various other public spaces. This is incredibly important because while young people do spend a good amount of their time at school they also occupy their time with all kinds of activities and programs where bullying can also occur. While the city is not in a position to prevent bullying everywhere it occurs, it can do its due diligence in ensuring that at least the agencies and programs that are operated or funded with District funds have an eye towards prevention.

It’s for this reason that every government agency or community based organization that receives city funds will be required to formulate and implement their own bullying prevention policy by September 14 of 2013. This is obviously a very important tenant of the city’s anti-bullying work, but can also be a bit daunting for CBO’s, which is where DCAYA comes in. Check out our checklist below to make sure your organization or an organization you care about is in compliance:

1) Read Through the Anti-Bullying Model Policy! This document is lengthy, but is packed with useful resources about preventing bullying and how to manage bullying situations when they occur.

2) Talk to other CBOs or government agencies. As we noted earlier ALL CBOs and government agencies funded by the city are required to go through this process so if you have questions or concerns others do to. Andrew Barnett from SMYAL and a number of other DCAYA members that were at yesterday’s meeting offered up some great ideas and recommendations around implementing a good policy for your organization. If you’re currently involved in any of the DCAYA committees you have connections to other organizations built in, utilize them!

3) Get into contact with the DC Office on Human Rights. If you are currently receiving city funds you have probably already received an email from them regarding the requirement for an organizational policy regarding bullying, but if you haven’t, getting into contact with OHR sooner rather than later is a good plan.

4) Go back to the Model Policy, there are samples to work off of in the document’s appendices.

If after going through all these steps you are still at a loss, feel free to contact DCAYA and we are happy to help connect you with other resources!

Anne Abbott is the policy analyst at DCAYA. She swears, if the Anti-Bullying Policy was in place when she was a kid, she wouldn't have turned out like this guy <. 

To read more about youth issues in DC you can FOLLOW us on Twitter, LIKE us on Facebook and VISIT us at www.dc-aya.org.

Disengaged and Non-Traditional Learners Can Thrive Through Summer Learning

Little known fact: I didn’t actually learn to read until I was nine years old. A combination of what was then diagnosed as dyslexia, a phonetic processing disorder (I still for the life of me cannot distinguish vowel sounds with any accuracy) and frankly a unique learning style, all left me at a significant disadvantage. School was, needless to say, a very stressful place. Homework time could best be described as an outright battle of wills between me and my (in hindsight, highly patient) parents.

This reality completely influenced how I spent my summers. My parents realized early on that I could not afford to sit idle during the 8 weeks of summer. So, while other kids went to sleep away camp, traveled with their family or roamed the woods of Vermont, I was in tutoring. During the early years, it was with a reading specialist matched by additional spelling and math work with a teacher from my elementary school. To say I perfected the art of non-violent protest during these sessions is an understatement. I would sit in silence and refuse to acknowledge the presence of the tutor with the finesse of a practiced CIA agent under interrogation.[1] Growing up in a family on a limited income, wasting expensive tutoring sessions was an untenable proposition for my parents.

That’s when they got creative (possibly manipulative). During the third grade I had heard about a local theater camp organized by a group of high school teachers for elementary and middle school aged students. I was enthralled until my mother gently pointed out it would be fairly difficult to participate if I couldn’t read the script. So, we struck a bargain. I could go to KidShow so long as I also participated in tutoring.

In an act of sheer brilliance, my parents found a summer opportunity that incentivized the horrific tutoring sessions and ensured that I practiced reading without the battles that had defined previous summers.  

The creativity my parents employed is a powerful parable. Did I need and benefit from the academic tutoring? Without question. But it was in KidShow that I thrived. For the first few summers, I remember re-reading the plays over and over again, practicing every word and eventually, sentences for hours. By the third summer, when my reading had improved and I had a speaking role, I began to learn memorization techniques and started to appreciate how the rules of grammar create the cadence of language: That a comma or semi-colon required a dramatic pause, or that an exclamation point suggested excitement or perhaps fear in the delivery of a line. KidShow not only gave me a reason to practice reading, it made it fun. It helped me discover learning strategies I still utilize today, and it built my confidence and willingness to keep trying even when faced with difficult and seemingly insurmountable tasks.

That’s the beauty of smart summer learning opportunities. Enrichment activities that blend in academic skills that can engage non-traditional learners and provide them the space to shine are priceless. They can give real world applicability to what seem – to many children and adolescents- to be entirely esoteric academic concepts. Physics takes on whole new levels of importance when learning to sail. Chemistry and fractions can come to life in cooking classes. Good artists understand not only color theory, but geometry.

All children, but especially disengaged or non-traditional learners deserve the chance to discover what I did over those 6 summers: That learning can be fun and that I can be good at it.  

(Maggie Riden, who now consumes books of all types with complete abandon, calls her parents at least twice a year to thank them for their patience and to apologize for 8 years of tears, tantrums and outright rebellion over school and homework. She would also like to note that her parent’s creativity didn’t end with school. Ask her how her parents broke the door slamming habit that emerged during her obnoxious high school years and how they dealt with epic sibling battles. Sheer brilliance.)

---

[1] Brief aside: If you believe my mother/the editorial fact checker of this blog post, I actually made a special education student teacher cry when I was in 6^th grade. I was stubborn- this was no shock. It wouldn’t have been so embarrassing (for her, and frankly my Mother) except that she and my Mom were in the same Speech and Language Graduate Program. Apparently this made for some awkward lecture hall discussions. 

Maggie Riden is the Executive Director of DC Alliance of Youth Advocates and has luckily grown out of her sleeping bag moth costume. She also no longer makes teachers cry. To stay updated on youth issues in D.C. you can FOLLOW us on Twitter, LIKE us on Facebook, and VISIT us at www.dc-aya.org. 

Summers Can Change the Way We Think About School

Many of the experiences I had as a teenager affected the person I am today, but when I question which experience I had is most closely tied to what I am doing now, the answer is undoubtedly summer camp, which for me was really more like summer school. My first experience with "summer school" was the day after my 8th grade graduation when I left the suburbs of NYC to spend my summer in rural New Jersey. It was during this time that I was able to begin my study of international affairs, a subject not offered at my public high school, but that I thought would be interesting.

This "summer school" experience allowed me to spend three summers studying international affairs at different universities and as direct result of that experience I am now continuing this academic pursuit in college. This occurred for two main reasons. First off, my summers exposed me to interesting and new subject matter that was not offered during the school year. The public school curriculum in New York State focuses on core topics like English and Math, but unfortunately does not leave much room for topics like international studies or foreign affairs. So the fact that taking classes over the summer allowed me to explore this area was incredibly valuable. This experience also exposed me to different styles of teaching and learning that changed the way I looked at academic coursework on the whole which I found to be useful throughout my academic endeavors.

Secondly, my summers profoundly affected my worldview. For one of the first times in my life, I had the opportunity to study with students from a variety of different cultures and backgrounds. This exposure shifted my perceptions and re-shaped past misconceptions I had held as a result of growing up in a smaller suburban area. I found this experience to be enlightening in a way that few other experiences are and I consider this kind of exposure to be of the utmost importance to the social and emotional development of a young person.

Here at DCAYA, I am excited to be researching and reporting on new and existing educational and enrichment models like many of the Expanded Learning models we highlight. These models and the different programs that utilize them are imperative for developing well rounded students that can do more than the minimal coursework required for graduation. With these types of programs students can do what I did and follow their unique interests (which may or may not be covered during a traditional school day or year) while also discovering potentially new interests along the way. Without this opportunity, I may have never realized my full potential, or pursued international affairs in college. Through expanded learning opportunities, students learn how to go beyond the school day and see opportunities for learning all around them.

Lauren Batten is the summer intern at DCAYA where she is assisting in the organization's Expanded Learning work. Lauren is originally from Westchester County, New York and is a rising junior at the George Washington University.

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A Last Look at Committee Recommendations

Before Wednesday’s budget vote in the Committee of the Whole, we thought we would do a quick rundown of what made it thru the Committee Markups. So here we go…


Committee on Human Services: Jim Graham, Chairman
Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA)
Employment
-“The Committee directs the agency to work with the advocacy community and foster youth to develop performance outcomes specifically for the Subsidized Employment Program. The agency shall also submit performance outcomes to the Committee by October 31, 2013. Additionally, the agency shall submit the “Subsidized Employment Program Quarterly Report” on the achievement of performance outcomes. The report should detail services all activities related subsidized employment programs, job readiness programs, and vocational training programs. The report should indicate expenditures for each activity, the number of unique youth served within each activity, types of jobs obtained, and the types of vocational trainings youth are enrolled in and have completed. The first quarter report shall be submitted to the Committee no later than January 31, 2014.”

Housing
-Transfer $550,000 from CFSA Personal Services to the Flexible Family Services Fund within CFSA: CSG 50, Activity 3010 (Child Placement), Program 3000 (Community Services). The following populations will be eligible to access the Fund:

- Homeless families who are unable to be served by the Virginia Williams Family Resource Center or the DHS Strong Families Program because there are no placements available and additional family services are needed to avoid their children being removed from their care;
- Families brought to the attention of CFSA due to excessive absenteeism from school;
- Homeless youth ages 16-24; and/or

- The Committee supports the proposed budget allocation of $1,397,000 for the Rapid Housing Program, which maintains the FY 2013 funding level. This program provides short-term subsidies to families for whom the lack of assistance may act as a major barrier to family stabilization, and likely result in an increased number of homeless families and children being brought into care. Additionally, the program provides housing support to young adults transitioning out of foster care. This support is critical to ensure that young adults who need housing support receive it. There has been a steady increase of in the number of homeless families, headed by youth, who recently emancipated from care. Continued support of this program will ensure that leaving foster care is not becoming a pathway to homelessness.


Department of Human Services (DHS)

Homeless Youth Services: “The increasing number of District youth experiencing homelessness is a concern for the Committee given the fact that homeless youth are at especially high risk of for exploitation; dropping out of school; and having health, mental health, and substance abuse problems. The Committee strongly supports the addition of $1 million in the proposed budget for homeless youth services for a total FY 2014 budget allocation of $3.4 million. The Committee notes that the Mayor has also provided $500,000 in FY 2013 funding for youth homeless services. The Committee wants to ensure that additional funding allocated to address the needs of homeless youth is used to expand services for homeless youth who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, or Questioning (LGBTQ), unaccompanied youth up to 18 years of age, and young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 years of age. The Committee is pleased to accept $486,000 from the Committee on Transportation and the Environment, chaired by Councilmember Mary Cheh, to expand shelter capacity for LGBTQ homeless youth.”

Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation (CYITC)
The Trust held steady with the $3 million dollars of funding allocated in the Mayor’s budget being approved by the Committee.

Committee on Workforce and Community Affairs: Marion Barry, Chairman

The full committee report is available here.

Department of Employment Services (DOES)

Programming dollars did not change from the Mayor’s proposed budget which means slight increases to the Mayor’s Youth Leadership Institute and the Summer Youth Employment Program and about a $4 million dollar bump to year-round employment programs. Our policy recommendations were also included in the Committee’s report (pg 27):

-“The Committee additional feels strongly that the agency must begin to build an outcome framework measuring “work readiness” for SYEP and the Office of Youth Programs and create an articulated mission, performance targets, and make public available outcome data and should begin to report outcomes by age range including for 18 to 24 year olds in their adult quarterly outcomes.”

-“It has also been suggested that Summer Youth Employment Program should be built out by take 50 youth and placing in the year round job opportunities to begin to give them a yearly opportunity.”


Department of Park and Recreation (DPR)

Programming dollar amounts suggested in the Mayor’s Proposed Budget held pretty steady in the DPR budget. As with DOES as number of DCAYA’s policy recommendations and concerns about operations rather than dollar amounts made it into the Committee report (pg 32):


-“ Staffing: Staffing continues to be a concern within the Department of Parks and Recreation. In FY2013 oversight hearings, the previous Committee received several complaints about the relocation of staff and programs. Additionally, last year they were concerned with the high number of vacancies, which stood at 68. This year DPR currently has 61 vacancies, which the agency commits to the Committee will be filed by July 2013. These positions are the same positions the agency had a tough time filling last year. In addition, the Mayor in the FY14 budget added an additional 38.2 FTE’s to ensure that there is adequate operational capacity that exists at new facilities and pools expected this upcoming fiscal year. The Committee wants to see the agency focused on filling the hard to fill positions and will work with the agency to address hiring and staffing issues.

Permitting/Field Space Use – DPR moved their permitting system to an electronic system where customers receive status updates on applications that go through the permit process. While it is great has made it easier for residents to sign up for permitting the Committee still has received complaints about an electronic system that is still hard to navigate when applying for permits and additional concerns have stemmed from equitable field use between recreational groups.

In addition, the Committee wants to see an improved permit fee structure. Many residents and Friends groups describe an expensive permit fee for residents compared to non-residents paying for DPR’s recreational facility. The Director of DPR has committed that the agency has begun to resolve this issue and has drafted a restructured permit fee plan that has gone to the Executive for review. The Committee will follow the progress of finalizing a new plan for the District’s permit fees.

Master Plan – DPR has begun the planning process for a new Parks and Recreation Master Plan. The initiative will create a 10-year strategy that will assess the capital and programmatic needs of the Districts parks and recreation system. The Committee is excited by this new endeavor because the plan will allow for DPR begin to strategize and prioritize funding and support for the city’s parks and recreation facilities and programs. “


Office of Human Rights

The biggest change here is the “transfer of $205,983.45 from the DOES to the Office of Human Rights – Equal Justice Program (2030) Investigations to maintain day to day operations in the Office of Human Rights; to implement the Mayor’s Bulling Prevention Task Force Act 2011 and Unemployed Anti-Discrimination Act; maintain civil rights testing an investigative duties; language access annual report; hiring of an office mediator.”


Office of Latino Affairs

The Committee did not fund this recommendation but nevertheless raised concern about a reduction in grant funds for the “Gang Intervention and Prevention Program; Pro-Urban Youth Program; and Youth Incentive and Empowerment Program. These programs totaled around $1.3 million. These programs were successful at reducing gang activity and violence, and created meaningful employment, career and educational opportunities for young people. The Committee is committed to working with the Executive and the agency in looking at other alternative ways in order to address these issues.”

The committee recommended that “ An additional $780,000 be allocated to community grants for a gang prevention and pro-urban youth program in order to reducing gang activity and violence” if funds could be found.

Committee on Education: David Catania, Chairman

Report Here.This budget experienced a lot of changes this year. Maybe the most important lines of the Committee report are here: “The Committee has identified $4,500,000 in savings internal to the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS), along with $135,000 in savings from the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education (DME), to support the following:

- Stabilizing DCPS schools that received more than a 5% gross reduction to their budget
from FY13 to FY14;

- Investing additional resources in summer academic enrichment programs, including the
summer bridge program for rising 9th graders;

- Restoration of reductions in library services for those schools impacted by the change in
policy regarding small school status; and

- Implementation of the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) at Woodson
High School.

Other highlights:


-“The Committee has identified $75,000 in savings from the Office of the Deputy Mayor of
Education to support a dedicated liaison for the PCSB to work with government agencies for
purposes of educational planning and to help coordinate the delivery of programs and services at
the individual charter schools.”

-“The Committee has identified $279,671 in savings from the Office of the Deputy Mayor of
Education and the Non-Public Tuition program to support the re-establishment of the Office of
the Ombudsman for Public Education.”


What’s important to remember is that none of the Committee recommendations will be final until tomorrow’s Committee of the Whole vote on the Budget Support Act. It is possible (and in some cases likely) that not all of these recommendations will go through and that by Thursday morning we will have some substantial changes to report out on. In the meantime if you have questions feel free to contact the DCAYA policy team!


And don’t forget, all our recommendations and copies of DCAYA staff and member testimony are available online at dc-aya.org

Reinvesting Savings To Support DC’s Fragile Families

For the fiscal year 2014 budget, Children’s Law Center urges reinvestment in children and families to prevent negative outcomes and avoid more expensive interventions in the future. Changes in policies and practices mean extra savings for the District: $30 million from sending fewer children to non-public schools and about half that amount from the reduction in the number of children in foster care. But these families will still need help from DC’s child- and family-serving agencies. The savings should follow the families and their needs through reinvestment in the education, early childhood, child welfare, and mental health system.

Education

The mayor’s office is planning to bring hundreds of students back to DC public schools (DCPS) from nonpublic placements and saving an anticipated $30 million in FY14 in tuition. While Children’s Law Center shares the hope expressed by Mayor Gray that all DC children be able to attend local schools, in our experience DC schools are already struggling to meet the current demand for special education services. Returning hundreds more children with disabilities to DCPS can only succeed if there is a major financial investment in expanding and improving DCPS’s existing special education services. Rather than such a meaningful financial investment, what is in the budget is simply a small increase to the foundation level for the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula. This increase is no more than what is necessary to account for rising teacher salaries and operating costs. The proportion of the DCPS budget going to special education is unchanged.

Early Childhood 

The FY14 budget for the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) includes a significant increase in funding for one of the most critical components of the education system – services for infants and toddlers with developmental delays. Research shows definitively that children’s experiences during their first years of life set the groundwork for their future success. Children who do not receive the specialized supports they need as infants and toddlers have a much harder time making up lost ground later. However, when young children do receive the supports they need, the payoffs are enormous, with long lasting and substantial gains. OSSE has recently expanded the eligibility criteria for DC’s early intervention program and the proposed FY 14 budget provides the funding necessary for this. While DC’s eligibility criteria are still more restrictive than those of 32 other states, this is an important step forward.

Child Welfare

There have been remarkable, positive reforms in DC’s child welfare system. Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) Director Brenda Donald and her team have been successful in realigning the agency’s philosophy and practice to remove fewer children from home, place more children with kin, and ensure shorter stays for children who ultimately must be removed and placed into foster care. This is a positive change for children and has resulted in a lower foster care population. With this decrease, it is not surprising to see some decrease in CFSA’s budget, simply because it costs less when fewer children are in foster care. However, the savings should be reinvested in programs that meet the needs of these still fragile families. While children and families are disappearing from the District’s foster care rolls, their needs remain as visible and as striking as ever.

CFSA’s budget proposal includes several reinvestments, to:

• add Family Assessment units to the differential response program
• maintain recently increased subsidies for grandparent caregivers
•  fund substance abuse treatment for families receiving in-home services
• contract for legal services for families before their children are removed

Reinvesting in these and other prevention-focused programs will build stronger families and continue to reduce the need for out-of-home care.


Mental Health

A properly functioning mental health system provides services to ensure children reach developmental milestones, aid their academic achievements, reduce their stays in foster care, and cope with the trauma in their lives rather than repeating the cycle of violence. The money we are not investing in mental health services today is reflected in the money we spend in our special education, foster care and juvenile justice budgets.

It is a positive step that the Department of Behavioral Health (DBH) budget has been increased to raise provider reimbursement rates and allow for an increase in other services. Unfortunately, the budget for DBH’s specific children’s programs is flat this year, although the current budget for these programs does not come close to meeting the needs of children with mental health problems in our city. Despite many improvements this past year DC children still have insufficient mental health services to assist them as they struggle to address problems in their families, schools, and community.

The District is seeing savings from reforms – but this money should be reinvested, following the fragile families from one program or one agency to the next. Their need for services is not going away; neither should the funding to serve them.


Judith Sandalow is the executive director of Children’s Law Center, which works to give every child in the District of Columbia a solid foundation of family, health, and education. CLC serves more than 2,000 at-risk children each year. Learn more at www.childrenslawcenter.org or review Children’s Law Center’s testimony at www.childrenslawcenter.org/news-events/testimony-comments.

Prepping for the FY'14 CYITC Budget Hearing

 Hopefully everyone reading this has already signed up to testify at Thursday mornings budget hearing for the Children Youth Investment Trust Corporation, and you’re amping up to explain to Council why investments in our youth intermediary and expanded learning sector are important. On the off chance that you’re still working on your testimony, or want a little more information before you take the plunge we thought we’d use today’s blog post to hit on the budget highlights that will impact expanded learning programming and provide some additional food for thought on crafting your testimony. 

The funding stream to support expanded learning programs is diverse, however recognizing that we already touched on DCPS last week, we’ll focus this analysis solely on CYITC ( the Trust). The Mayor’s proposed budget has kept the funding to the Trust flat at $3,000,000. At this mark:

· The Trust will be stretched to sustain support for the 3,100 youth who received Trust funded programming this year;

· The availability of summer grants will depend entirely on year-end savings or a budget surplus (as has been the case the last two years and is never a safe way to plan funding or programming);

· The Trust will remain unable to provide training and technical assistance, capacity development support, research, and evaluation to understand what works and what to grow within the youth serving sector; all of which are a primary components of the Trust’s mission and mandate.

At the same time however, the Mayor has indicated that an additional infusion of operating funds to the Trust is a priority if the money can be identified in the FY’14 Budget; and Council is still deciding how to allocate the FY’13 supplemental funds. This means we have the opportunity to make a thoughtful ask and clear recommendation at Thursday’s hearing.

The ask: We ask for an (at minimum) infusion of $2,000,000 into the Trust’s FY’14 Budget to ensure that the current level of school-year programming is sustained and high performing organizations can scale up additional services to reach far more youth (point of reference- a $1,000,000 increase would serve an additional 1,430 youth in year round programming); it would help to ensure the availability of youth development programming during the summer of 2014; and would provide the Trust with the necessary operating funds to reinvigorate their work as a capacity builder, trainer and data hub able to support and report back to key decision makers about the needs and opportunities within the field of youth development.

The recommendation/Where should the money come from: The Mayor’s proposed supplemental budget includes over $118,000,000 for Department of Parks and Recreation facilities.Obviously this is an admirable investments; but the removal of $2,000,000  will have a minimal impact on these projects while significantly expanding the availability and quality of youth development programs that we know will reap academic, social, emotional and health rewards for years to come.

The final question is, how do we make the case? The first step is being present on Thursday to give your testimony and show your support for the importance of a solid public-private youth development intermediary. We strongly encourage you to check out our talking points on this hearing which can be found here. If you’re feeling especially ambitious, we encourage you to recruit others (parents, youth, volunteers, board members, alumni) to do the same.

If you can’t make it Thursday, a second option is to commit to getting 10 people from your network (personal and professional) to call or email the members of the Committee on Human Services and their council member to tell them why expanded learning is important and why they should invest in the youth development programming and services. The opportunities presented by the supplemental budget, while not a guarantee beyond next year, shouldn't be forgotten in our advocacy work or asks this budget season- but as always, it will take a collective and loud voice to make this happen.

This blog post was written by DCAYA's Executive Director Maggie Riden. For more information on DCAYA's work in the fields of positive youth development and expanded learning please visit the Policy and Advocacy section of our website.

What's Inside the DCPS Budget?

Since we did our budget overview last week, it only makes sense this week to start to go a little deeper. With that in mind, DCAYA is proud to present some ideas and points about the DCPS budget proposal. The DCPS hearing will be next Wednesday April 17^th.

We said this last week, but we’ll say it again: the DCPSbudget can be a confusing thing and this year is no exception. There are a lot of questions to be answered given the convoluted proposed budgeting for many programs in FY’14.  A prime example of this is the reduction of $268,000 from last year’s already severely reduced budget for the Office of Out of School Time Programming being countered by a $2,680,000 increase to the “Extended Day” line item. Certainly, DCAYA is on board with the idea of extending the amount of time that students spend engaged and learning. However, as we have written about before, extendedday models can vary widely and do not all achieve the same intended results. It’s also important to note that previously schools were open to community partners during after-school hours with janitorial and security services because these things were centrally coordinated by the Office of Out of School Time Programming. This same office became responsible for vetting community partners and most importantly for placing full-time after-school coordinators in each school to work with the service providers, principals, teachers, and parents to improve coordination and service delivery. In the last two years, this office took the focus on coordination and quality a step further, initiating work with community partners, DCPS central office, principals and teachers to align what students learned during the school day (newly defined common core standards) with the academic focus and objectives of after school programming. As this office has been largely defunded it its very unclear where these functions will land within DCPS or if they will be maintained at all.

Another somewhat baffling number in the DCPS budget is the Proving What’s Possible line item which only comes in at $733,000, given the sheer size of this program that number seems impressively low and PWP does not show up elsewhere in the DCPS budget (although it is likely part of the Extended Day or Technology line items).

Summer school is set to receive a very small bump this year, which is discouraging given all the research that points to summerlearning’s ability to close the achievement gap. The Summer School line item is certainly a place that could use some spirited advocacy!

Inducing further confusion is the “Instructional Programs” section  of the budget which essentially zeros out “Alternative Education” whereas the “Vocational Education” line item is set to experience a $6,000,000 bump which about evens out to Alt. Ed cut. Is this change just a re-purposing of funds? We hope so.

In terms of places that could all use some serious infusions of cash: Evening Credit Recovery is set to get about $375,000 in new funds, but middle and high schools could do a lot more with larger budgets. We know many of our students could utilize opportunities to regain credits and get back on track, so we need to support this.

The general Student Support Services is supposed to take a $286,000 cut along with a cut to School Social and Psychological Services of $92,000. This on its face is bad news but again these cuts are more than balanced out by School Health Services budget item which is set to receive an increase of $1,353,000.Youth Engagement will experience a cut of $733,000. Parent Resource Centers will experience a cut of $1,492,000 and Student Attendance will be cut $514,000. The Family and Community Engagement budget is set to experience an increase of $1,230,000. A lot of these cuts and bumps are likely internal repurposing of funds, and especially considering the focus on truancy prevention and student engagement this is likely. However, what advocates need to look at for is that these funds a re-purposing and that the functions formerly carried out are continuing to happen.

We know that the Committee on Education and the larger Committee of the Whole have an intense interest in solving the truancy issue within the District’s schools and especially at DCPS so as a community of advocates we need to look at things through the school engagement lens. While the DCPS budget may be complicated and may just be moving pots of money from one line to another, we still need to ensure that the programs that have proven their effectiveness or show great promise of doing so remain intact. With that we encourage all youth providers that have worked with DCPS to testify at next week's hearing.

If you wish to testify, please contact the Committee on Education ASAP so they can add you to the witness list.

 For more information on DCAYA's policy priorities and recommendations about out-of-school time and expanded learning please visit us online at dc-aya.org or contact Susan Ruether or Maggie Riden.