City Year R.I. reaches Providence students at risk

Roughly 30 percent of Providence’s public school students are “chronically absent,” missing 18 or more days of school every year. That’s a huge problem, according to research that shows chronic absenteeism is a major predictor of whether a student will drop out before completing high school.
Fortunately, the city has a powerful ally in overcoming this challenge – City Year Rhode Island.
The nonprofit places groups of 17- to 24-year-olds who have committed to one year of service as part of the national AmeriCorps program in five public schools in Providence. These “corps members” tutor students, organize after-school programs and lead other activities designed to improve learning and student achievement.
Evidence shows that the group is making a difference in the city’s educational system: Pleasant View Elementary School saw a 3 percent increase in attendance rates, a 52 percent improvement in math scores and a 67 percent improvement in literacy scores, after City Year began working in its classrooms.
“One of the best parts is that we’re having an impact on the students in Providence directly, and we’re also an AmeriCorps program, so we have young leaders committing a year of their lives to serve their country,” said Nora Crowley, City Year Rhode Island’s impact director. “So we’re really making an impact on two fronts.”
While City Year Providence launched in 1993, it wasn’t until the past decade that the program started to focus exclusively on public schools. Today, 50 corps members work in two elementary schools across the city, Carl G. Lauro and Pleasant View, and in three middle schools, Roger Williams, Gilbert Stuart and DelSesto.
“We are responsible for literally changing the trajectory of students’ lives,” said Jennie Johnson, City Year Rhode Island’s executive director. “That’s a big responsibility, and one that we take very seriously.”
The organization carries out this task through its “Whole School Whole Child” philosophy. Corps members work full time with high-risk students who are chronically absent, demonstrate disruptive behavior, and/or struggle with math or reading. In collaboration with teachers and school administrators, corps members develop interventions to improve student performance across these three areas. That can mean anything from one-on-one tutoring, to organizing parent engagement nights or running after-school basketball clubs.
Johnson highlighted one particularly moving story of the impact City Year has. A corps member noticed one child who would frequently walk right by the school without coming inside. He approached the student and – after a few conversations – learned that he didn’t have many friends and the boy’s parent had committed suicide. These struggles made him hesitant to come to school. But there was something the boy did enjoy doing – and that was playing chess.
“This corps member happened to be running a chess club and got him into it,” Johnson said. “Within a couple of weeks, he helped the kid make a couple of friends and have peer relationships he hadn’t had before. His attendance that year did improve.”
Corps members provide a level of individualized attention that most public schools simply aren’t equipped to offer. According to Johnson, the average urban public school can provide individual support to about 15 percent of its student population, while 57 percent of the student body needs those kinds of services.
“We fill the gap that schools face,” Johnson said.
The approach is increasingly effective, for both teachers and students. According to City Year Rhode Island, 97 percent of the organization’s partner teachers reported the past two years that corps members improved their students’ academic performance, an increase from 70 percent in 2011 and 84 percent in 2012. This year, City Year expects to reach more than 800 struggling students.
“We’re even seeing a whole-school effect,” said Carrie Bridges Feliz, director of strategic community partnerships for the Providence Public School District. Feliz said that in the 2011-2012 school year, Pleasant View Elementary School issued 42 suspensions. In 2012-2013 – the year that corps members joined the school – that number dropped to zero.
City Year staff said that the key to achieving these kinds of results is forging strong partnerships with teachers, administrators and the entire district.
Corps members not only receive training through City Year, they participate in workshops organized by the school district and sit in on instructional leadership teams. City Year signed a data-sharing agreement with the school district that allows both organizations to learn what’s working, what’s not, and make appropriate modifications to the curriculum. And this year, City Year held a partnership summit with the principals they work with, partners from the school district, and other personnel. Everyone looked back on their results from the previous year and collectively set goals for each school with a City Year presence.
“We’re finally at a point where we’re really walking hand-in-hand with partners in the district,” Crowley said. “We’re seeing better results because we’re so much more aligned than we were five years ago.”
The challenge now is expanding to meet the great scale of public schools’ needs. It costs about $300,000 to place a team of corps members in a public school. While public education funding, the school district, and AmeriCorps provide some of this financial support, about 60 percent of the organization’s funding comes from the private sector, largely through its Team Sponsor Program, through which corporations pay $100,000 to sponsor a team of corps members serving at a school.
“In a small community like this, with a ton of nonprofits doing a lot of work, it tends to be a real challenge to access the level of resources you need to grow your program,” Johnson said. “Sustaining is hard enough.”
Still, demand for the program continues to grow. Johnson said that principals regularly approach the organization about getting a team of corps members for their school. Young people and recent college graduates consistently apply to spend a year in Providence’s public schools. And City Year staff keep finding fulfillment in the work they do.
“I came to City Year to make an impact on the youth we serve,” said Stephen Larbi, City Year’s program manager at Gilbert Stuart Middle School. “What I did not realize was how much of the impact they will make on me.” •